National Textbook Program in Brazil: The Theme of Inflation in High School

Source abstract

Understanding the concept of inflation is an increasingly indispensable competency to be developed in Basic Education. In this context, this work aimed to analyze how inflation is addressed in didactic works on mathematics within the Brazilian textbook distribution program from Critical Mathematics Education. For this, we analyzed the ten textbooks that make up collections intended for High School through Learning Environments. The results showed the predominance of the exercise paradigm, more specifically Learning Environments 3 and 5, in which inflation is mostly presented at the beginning of chapters on Financial Mathematics, together with topics on percentages or calculations of increases and decreases, with such an address occurring predominantly superficially, with the purpose of contextualization or introduction of a specific mathematical content. Also, inflation is not taken as a significant concept for understanding contemporary social phenomena, thus perpetuating the framework of teaching that favors mechanical learning and knowledge reproduction