Is There Any Change in Science Educational Reforms? A sociological study of theories of instruction.

This study analyzes the theory of instruction legitimized by the Ministry of Education in the present reform (1991) by comparison with the previous reform (1975), in order to find out possible changes in the teacher-student relation. The study is focused on the syllabuses of the discipline of Natural Sciences of Years 5/6 and 7, and is theoretically based on Bernstein's theory of pedagogic discourse. The results showed that there are differences between the 1975 and the 1991 reforms, which reveal a change from a more self-regulative theory of instruction to a mixed theory of instruction. This is particularly evident for Years 5/6 of schooling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]