Tendências das pesquisas em formação continuada de professores em educação ambiental no Brasil

In this paper we try to systematize some results that arose from the first author’s Phd thesis that had as main objective to analyse, in a panoramic perspective, research trends on in-service teacher education for Environmental Education. We also tried to explore, in an analytical perspective, possible meaning making processes, from this academic research, about this educational practice. In this paper, we have systematized the results related to the objectives and research questions that were made explicit by the researchers in their dissertations (master studies) or thesis (doctoral studies). Recognised as a state of the art study or state of the knowledge, this research has analysed dissertations and theses on teacher education process for Environmental Education, that was carried out in Brazil from 1981 until 2012. Dissertations and thesis were considered as a particular academic discursive genre and the analysis were guided by Bakhtinian perspectives and considering the reconfigured concept of discursive formation, in a context of the Bakhtinian dialogism. Reading and analysing the enunciation that refers to research questions and objectives allow to explore meaning making process on teacher in-service education research, considering three sets of research: 1 - dissertations and theses whose research focus were on the knowledge production process; 2 – dissertations and theses whose research focus were on teacher educational practices; and 3 – dissertations and theses whose research focus were sometimes on knowledge production processes, sometimes on teacher education practices in Environmental Education. One aspect that arose from the analyses was the difficulty to make clear in the research report the research questions and objectives. From the analysis carried out it was observed a set of research in which the research objectives just have mentioned intentions regarding the teacher education practices, not considering wider and deeper questions that could lead to knowledge production. Nonetheless, it deserves to point out, that it was possible to identify some research’s perspectives in which it was clear some researcher’s intentions to articulate knowledge production actions to pedagogical practices actions, which can be seeing as advances in terms of perspectives for teacher education research. These perspectives open new possibilities that can be seeing as pertinent and significative to the attempts to articulate knowledge production projects to social transformative processes.