Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

The purpose of this article is to discuss the relationship between the teaching process and the health of 196 teachers working at municipal preschools in Pelotas, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, in 2011. Methodologically, the research was developed in two stages, a quantitative and a qualitative one. In the quantitative dimension, a Job Content Questionnaire was applied to the entire faculty, the purpose of which is to investigate the occupational routines of the work that are considered a risk to the workers' health. In the qualitative dimension, data collection was carried out through semi-structured interviews on the teachers' educational practices in their daily work and about what surrounds them. The axis of the interviews addressed the daily work of these teachers and their perceptions about the importance of the early childhood education teacher. The analysis showed that the prevailing discourses reinforce the idea of teaching as a priesthood, naturalizing the idea of giving and sacrifice as intrinsic to the teaching process.

The April 25, 1974 military coup in Portugal required workers and intermediate sectors of society to come into the scene. There is a historical connection between the attaining of social rights and the development of the workers’ control in the revolutionary process from February 1975. The Government then implemented a series of social measures intended to prevent the uprising and that, broadly speaking, would build what has been called the social State, i.e., the allocation of resources for work through the social functions of the State (education, health, social security, leisure, sports, subsidized public transport, subsidized income, etc.), against, in fact, the orders of the military leadership itself, which had put an end to the dictatorship, the Armed Forces Movement. From March 1975, with the widespread establishment of worker and resident councils, the beginning of the agrarian reform, and the questioning of private property (a process taking place through the action of workers, often fighting against dismissals or disinvestments and the abandonment of companies, and not as a strategy of its main policy guidelines, the Portuguese Communist Party), the Portuguese revolution took a qualitative leap, becoming a ‘Soviet’-type revolutionary situation.

This study aimed to characterize theoretical and pedagogical concepts in distance education in the training/qualification of employees of the Unified Health System and to identify courses in distance education, supported in this context. The systematic search involved qualitative studies using the terms ‘distance education' and ‘health.' In all, 21 studies were selected to compose the meta-study, which consisted of three stages: Metatheory, metamethods, and meta-analysis. Four categories were identified in the metatheory: Constructivism; the pedagogy of Paulo Freire; continuing education in health; conceptions belonging specifically to distance education. The metamethods step found 11 experience reports; two case studies; three involved content analysis; one involved action research; and the another, discourse analysis. Marking results were found in the meta-analysis: Formation of learning communities; strengthening of management spaces; formation of network for projects in continuing education. The discussions emphasized strengthening the Unified Health System, the protagonism of the subjects, and the formation of care networks. It was noted that the study focuses on the more conceptual and theoretical aspects than on the methodological ones. Concepts supported in Constructivism, in continuing education in health, and in a theoretical framework of distance education itself were evident. In the studies, distance education was considered essential for training/qualifying professionals in the Unified Health System.

By establishing itself as a public policy based on the ethical-aesthetic-political paradigm, the National Humanization Policy introduces a new sense to the proposal of humanizing health: A counter-hegemonic sense, coupled with the understanding of life as openness and multiplicity. Given the challenge of operating such an innovative concept, which is contrary to traditional practices, this study sought to discuss the understanding and experience that institutional supporters trained under the National Humanization Policy had of the ethical and political dimension of the proposal. The subject of this research project was investigated in the light of a qualitative methodological approach, exploratory and descriptive in nature, having as subjects the graduates of an institutional supporter training process held in 2009, in Santa Catarina, Brazil. Through interviews and documentary research, the results were the obtained of an understanding of the scale based on the valuation of subjects and democratization of relations. The experiences and tests, however, were marked by obstacles and challenges, such as the concentration of power at the institutions and the fragility of the health care model, still guided by management and biomedical rationales. Also challenging were the difficulties related to the understanding of a few of the concepts of the Policy and the ways in which it has been organized both in health services and inter-federatively.

The process of training in health faces a challenge of transformation and is being guided to meet the needs of the National Health System. This article analyzes how undergraduate courses in pharmacy have addressed the national curriculum guidelines, with a focus on training directed to pharmaceutical assistance, as well as on faculty and student participation in practices aiming to bring together teaching and the reality of working in the National Health System. A documentary analysis was made of the curricula and political-pedagogical projects of Pharmacy courses at public and private higher education institutions in Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina, and Paraná, Brazil. Semi-structured interviews with students and professors of courses in Santa Catarina were also conducted. The National Curriculum Guidelines have been adopted at different times since 2002, and the theoretical bases, as evidenced by the offer of subjects, also showed quite substantial differences among the courses. Internships were the most common strategy to draw teaching and service closer together; in courses with the Program of Education through Work in Health, it was noted there was a better understanding of the NHS among students. The study points to the need to critically rethink the National Curriculum Guidelines and how they have been implemented by the Pharmacy courses.

This paper presents the results of a study carried out to evaluate the development of teaching and learning, supported by a problem-based participatory approach, from the perspective of professors and students of the Escola Tocantinense do Sistema Único de Gismar Gomes, in training National Health System workers and those seeking to enter this labor market. We opted for the ‘research itinerary’ approach set forth by educator Paulo Freire, adopting ‘crop circles’ as data collection framework, in three stages: Construction of generating themes; encoding and decoding of the issues, and critical unveiling. These themes were identified: Problematization as a methodological option; application of the investigative methodology; challenges in the teaching-learning process, and factors that hinder or facilitate the teaching-learning process. This process enabled closer relations among the various participants and allowed discussions on aspects of the school teaching-learning process, affording a better understanding of this reality, allowing it to be re-contextualized with new possibilities, progress, and means to overcome.

Comic books are currently seen as a very effective didactic and pedagogical tool, capable, through their cultural curriculum, of bringing fun, feelings, and of helping one to live and behave in the world. This article aims to investigate the Almanaque Maluquinho: Julieta no mundo da culinária (Little Crazy Almanac: Juliet in the culinary world) comic book, acknowledging the educational role comic books can play, in order to determine whether this publication enables discussions on the exploring of different areas relevant to food education and whether it may become a strategy to bring awareness on the theme to children. We used discourse analysis, as it is a methodological tool that leads us to interpret the meanings of a text/image. The analysis was done in three stages: The analysis of the narrative context, through which we tried to understand the context in which the characters of the book are inserted; analysis of comics, for a better understanding of imagistic elements featured in the stories, and analysis of the recipes, through which each preparation contained in the book was evaluated to determine its collaboration in the food education discussion. Finally, the study sought to bring awareness about the look at the possibilities of inserting playfulness in a field of knowledge marked by prescriptions.

Biosecurity is a central component to be taken into account in order for professionals to undertake their activities while minimizing damage to their health and to health service users. Educational institutions and teaching nurses play a fundamental role in this process. A qualitative descriptive exploratory research study was carried out to understand the teaching nurses' biosecurity practices during the supervision of the internship of students taking technical courses in nursing. Data were collected in 2012, with 11 teaching nurses from two institutions in the federal network of professional, scientific, and technological education in Southern Brazil. Methodological triangulation was done with data collected through a documental study, semi-structured interviews, and observation, guided by thematic content analysis of Bardin. The results showed that the teachers' actions in biosecurity are influenced by the availability of and access to materials and equipment, by the amount and quality of personal protective equipment, by the infrastructure of the healthcare institutions, by care institutions and teaching laboratories, and by their knowledge on the subject. It was concluded that the protective actions in the teaching practice are influenced by knowledge, by working conditions, and by the choice of subjects.