Socioscientific issues: comparative analysis between Brazil and Portugal

The discussion of socioscientific issues is one of the didactic strategies that can stimulate the development of scientific literacy. But, is this approach used in the same way and with the same goals in different educational contexts? With this in mind, this paper aims to analyze how socioscientific issues are addressed in Brazilian and Portuguese research, seeking to identify the similarities and differences of the two educational and research contexts. The data was compiled in Brazil and Portugal, starting from the CAPES Thesis and Dissertations Catalog and from the repository website of the Education Institute of the University of Lisbon, respectively. The results show that Portuguese researchers use the discussion of socioscientific issues, mainly to develop skills for citizenship and activism. Brazilian investigations, on the other hand, aim mainly at learning scientific content. This may be related to the lower quality of basic education in Brazil, for several reasons, ranging from gaps in teacher training to the low valuation of the teaching profession.