Da leitura prática às práticas de leitura: o caso dos cursos superiores de tecnologia

Abstract

The present thesis analyzes the reading practices of students of Technology Degree Courses of a public institution specializing in Professional and Technological Education, investigating to what extent the sociocultural and academic contexts act on these practices. The theoretical foundation is based mainly on the Sociology of Reading, from the studies of Horellou-Lafarge e Segré (2010), Chartier (1999a, 1999b, 2001, 2011), Bourdieu (2011, 2015), Petit (2009a, 2009b), Zilberman (1999, 2001, 2012), Escarpit (1968), Candido (2000), Darnton (2010), Manguel (1997), Aguiar (2007) Abreu (2001, 2015) e Carlino (2017), complemented by the cognitive-sociological perspective of Giasson (2000), Marcuschi (1999, 2004, 2008), Paviani (2006, 2013), Kleiman (2013) e Gabriel (2005). The research is descriptive and explanatory and motivated by empirical experience as a Portuguese and Literature teacher. It was based on a case study with students of five Technology Degree Courses of the Instituto Federal de Educação, Ciência e Tecnologia do Rio Grande do Sul – Campus Bento Gonçalves. During data collection, questionnaires, interviews and reading tests were applied. Throughout the thesis, it was observed that not only the sociocultural context, such as social origin, economic conditions, school trajectory, social and cultural activities that students participate in act on their reading practices, but also the academic context has fundamental importance in the configuration of these practices, conditioning readings, restricting or promoting access to certain textual genres, favoring the use of one or another reading support. However, in spite of their relevance, sociocultural and academic contexts are conditioning, not determinant, of the individuals' reading practices, being constituents of human action, and also, they are always dynamic and flexible. The results emphasize that students' reading practices meet the pragmatic needs of daily life, prioritizing short texts of expository typology, and occurring mainly in digital media, in addition to reading in order to meet the requirements of the curricular components of the degree course, especially scientific papers.The reading of fictional literature does not constitute a consolidated and perennial activity among the sociocultural practices of the individuals studied, and the Technology Degree Course does not favor or stimulate this practice. Besides, the individuals studied are student-workers, it involves not only less willingness to study, but also less time available for academic and leisure readings, including fictional literature, interfering in the levels of reading competence. Finally, as a practical intervention, we propose the democratization of reading in Technological Higher Education in two ways: a) helping students to understand the texts that circulate in the academic context; and b) broadening the diversity of textual genres read by students, including fictional literature.