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This article addresses the issue of the level of conceptual demand of science curricula by analysing the case of the current Portuguese Natural Sciences curriculum for middle school. Conceptual demand is seen in terms of the complexity of cognitive skills, the complexity of scientific knowledge and the intra-disciplinary relations between distinct knowledges within the same discipline. The article also analyses recontextualizing processes that may occur within the official recontextualizing field. Theoretically, it is based on Vygotsky's ideas and Bernstein's theory of pedagogic discourse and uses a mixed methodology. The results show that the document with the broad guidelines of the curriculum contains a relatively high level of conceptual demand in terms of the three dimensions of conceptual demand studied. This message is recontextualized, in the direction of decreasing its conceptual demand, in the document with specific guidelines. The article explores consequences, in terms of "all" students' scientific literacy, of the low level of conceptual demand recommended by the document with specified pedagogic guidelines, since teachers and textbook authors rely mostly on this official text to guide their practices and texts. In methodological terms, the study explores assumptions used in the analysis of the level of conceptual demand and presents innovative instruments constructed for developing this analysis.

The study analyses the extent to which the sociological message transmitted by the teachers' pedagogic practice recontextualizes the official pedagogic discourse of the natural sciences curriculum for a Portuguese middle school. Theoretically, the study is based on theories of psychology (e.g. Vygotsky), epistemology (e.g. Ziman) and sociology, with a particular emphasis on Bernstein's theory of pedagogic discourse. A mixed methodology was used in the study. The results suggest the existence of processes of transformation of the message within the Ministry of Education, when passing from the general principles to the specific principles of the curriculum. Transformation is in the direction of decreasing the quality of science education. The results of the curriculum analysis are discussed with regard to specific characteristics studied: metascientific knowledge, scientific knowledge and competences, intradisciplinary relations and evaluation criteria. The results also showed a decrease in the quality of the teaching-learning process when recontextualizing curriculum into pedagogic practices. This is shown by the absence by teachers of recognition and passive and active realization rules in most of the characteristics under study. These processes of transformation of the message are discussed, as well as its consequences in terms of scientific literacy.