Physics Education from a decolonial perspective: a case study with Brazilian curriculum

The educational process is characterized as a set of pedagogical actions developed for a particular social group and provided with intentionality. In this sense, every pedagogical action involves an intention, which transfers and reproduces cultural patterns that materialize in social values and traditions. In this context, the postmodern decolonial thinking discussed by Quijano (2019), Mignolo and Walsh (2018), and Abdi (2011) are inserted, as well as the epistemological aspects given by Santos (2020). Thus, with this paper, we seek to present a case study developed in Brazil about the colonial influences that manifest themselves in the science curriculum of the State of São Paulo, Brazil, taking Physics Education as the context for analysis. For that, we used as a method of analysis the Discourse Analysis given by the France perspective about the ideological construction of the discourse. As preliminary results, we identified that the absence of an original Brazilian structure for the construction of the analyzed curriculum corroborates the perspectives of a form of colonization characterized by us as at the primary level, that is, epistemic. With the investigation, we hope to contribute to understanding which the cultural lens that act as a colonizing operator on the set of scientific standards and Brazilian scientific representativeness.


Introduction
The Education understood as the process that forms the individual for a certain ethical, aesthetic, and political purpose, is one of the most important mechanisms for social maintenance.This fact is justified because it is through Education that the social standards of a group are solidified.In this way, according to perspective by Giddens (2013), we can interpret it as an institution.
However, each institution regarding the mentioned author, is a set of rules and resources constituting a structure.Thus, all individuals that make up a social group participate in a grouping of structures, which are categorized as micro, meso, or macro levels.In addition, when we think about the school context, for example, the categorization of the structural theory puts the school at the level of a mesostructure, considering the totality of all the individuals that are there as, also, of microstructure, when we consider the devices that operate in it, such as teaching materials, curricula, teacher actions, etc.
Likewise, as in every educational institution (e.g school) also has sub-institutions such as History Education, Math Education, and Science Education.So, these sub-institutions have sociocultural aspects that manifest and materialize elements that keep their social groupings together.
That way, in this paper we seek to present a case study conducted in Brazil regarding the colonial influences that manifest themselves in the Physics Education curriculum of the São Paulo, Brazil.For that, we assume as analysis frame the theoretical constructs about decoloniality developed by Quijano (2019), Mignolo (2008) and Walsh (2019), as well as epistemological constructs developed by Santos (2020).

Decoloniality and Science Education
Initially, we assume that culture is a fundamental institution of a social group, which reflects its essential characteristics that are classified in ethical, aesthetic, and organizational aspects (Benedict, 2013).These aspects, together, operate as a set of action schemes and resources that reproduce and influence social relationships (Sewell Jr., 2005).
The term operator has its epistemological origin in sociology and refers to the set of actions intrinsically related to the structural term in question.This means that when we say cultural operator, we are referring to the set of actions that assume culture as the agent responsible for modifying the considered social structure.
In this sense, when considering Physics Education as sub-institution, the curriculum is one of the elements that present such schemes and resources, because it is a document (device) that establishes what should or should not be taught and worked on to form a subject.Thus, through the curriculum, we found a set of standards chosen through political-ideological disputes carried out in specific groups.
Furthermore, through the curriculum device, we observe cultural aspects that are embedded in a colonization process still in force.This colonization process, however, according Mignolo and Walsh (2008) is characterized by political-epistemic violence of modernity, that is, by a coloniality/modernity dyad the imposed a set of thoughts and patterns on social groups.
Besides, the modernity/coloniality dyad is understood as a pair of inseparable concepts, since in the decolonial perspectives proposed by Quijano (2019) and Mignolo (2008), because modernity was only possible due to the emergence of coloniality.This means that modernity was an invention that originated in Central Europe due to the expansionist movement and colonization of new territories.
Thus, this reproduction of cultural elements from a society of greater power over a group of lesser power is understood here as political, economic, and cultural colonization e and can be interpreted through decoloniality (or decoloniality for some authors).According to Mignolo (2008, p.313): Decolonization, or rather decoloniality, means at the same time: a) unveiling the logic of coloniality and the reproduction of the colonial matrix of power (which, of course, means a capitalist economy); and b) disconnecting from the totalitarian effects of Western subjectivities and categories of thought (e.g, the successful and progressive subject and blind prisoner of consumes).
According Mignolo (2008) the use of the term decolonize alludes to an aspect beyond the geographic, as the author himself indicates, as well as an epistemological one.In addition, following Quijano (2019) the coloniality developed around two main axes: (i) the idea of race for social groups, and (ii) the constitution of a new structure for obtaining resources and power (politic and economic).Also, according to this author, it was thanks to the idea of race that the concept of modernity was created (i.e political-religious justifications were invented that authorized dominion over other peoples) and, with it, the possibility of colonization and construction of overseas capital.
In this way, once we assume the curriculum as a device that operates cultural patterns within the school institution, and that through this device a set of rules establish a relationship analogous to colonization, we can say according Quijano (2019) that the dyad coloniality/modernity alludes to a socially imposed status quo.
This means that if it is through education that culture is established, transformed, and reproduced, it will be through it, mainly, that the domination of a people will take place, not only by force or the use of military action in territorial occupations, The authors, Mignolo (2008) and Santos (2020), designate this as a way of destroying different epistemes, ensuring only that one of the colonizing agents (e.g usually the richest and English-speaking countries) are hidden and when not destroyed.
In this sense, according to Abdi (2011) and Mometti (2022) colonizing a specific social group is not only through force, but also through the episteme and, mainly, through the psyche.Thus, when a particular culture enters another territory, with its way of being and being in the world, it causes it to belittle and promotes an epistemic annulment, leading to significant ontological changes.
A clear example of this can be found when Latin Americans appropriate North American standards of an apparently better lifestyle, that is, everything that is North American is good while what originates in their own land is not.Thus, we can say that there is a process of enculturation of the oppressor over the oppressed, which reverberates and is also reflected in education.In this regard Mometti, Tajmel and Pietrocola (2021, p.2) saying that: Assuming the Brazilian curriculum as the context of our study, we have the follow question: what would epistemic disobedience in the sense used by Mignolo (2008) mean?In other words, how can we read the São Paulo Physics Education curriculum under decolonial lenses?For what educational objective would we carry out such a movement?
To answer the first question, we could highlight one of the clearest and most observable facts regarding the set of teaching materials used for Physics Education in public schools: textbooks.Thus, for a textbook to be produced in Brazil and, subsequently, sent to schools across the country, publishers applying for supply must respect a set of rules and topics available for each year.
These rules, moreover, are established by the country's Ministry of Education, which basically means that it is a political-ideological orientation of the government in power.In this sense, none of the public notices of the last two decades and, consequently, the textbooks produced, bring Brazilian scientists as examples of scientific facts and/or studies developed.When we orient our observation towards the issue of gender, the situation is even worse, since most of the scientists portrayed are men and all are from European countries or North America.
Thus, if the premise we established earlier that teaching materials, such as textbooks, materialize the rules and norms established by the curriculum and this, in turn, configures a set of cultural standards, we can say that Brazilian Physics Education assumes a Euro-USA epistemic perspective, disregarding the most common and regional aspects of this immense country that is Brazil.Thus, we answer the first question using the studies of Giraldo and Fernandes (2020, p.491) when they highlight an analogue situation in Math Education: [...] it is relevant to understand how a kind of mathematical colonization, undertaken particularly in formative and school processes, produces this collective aimed at teaching Mathematics, gathering, and consolidating ethical, aesthetic, and/or political meanings that participate in these processes [colonization, emphasis added].
In addition, for the second question, the curriculum can be interpreted using two ways, a priori established by methodologies already consolidated in the scientific field: content analysis (CA) and discourse analysis (DA).The first, based on studies by Laurence Bardin from the 1970s onwards, brings a set of categories that show what the document has on its surface.This means that there is no in-depth understanding of the reasons why a particular utterance was made and the impacts of its utterance.
The second form, in turn, draws on two other sources: one Russian, through the studies of Mikhail Bakhtin and your circle, and the other French, through the perspective of Michel Pêcheux.Both converge in one point: to find the origin and motive of the uttered speech.In this sense, even if a curriculum is hidden, we can find between its lines the ideologies employed in it during its elaboration and, with that, the cultural standards and values selected for transmission.
Finally, on the last question we have nothing more than the enunciation of a project of decolonized education, which according to Mignolo (2008, p.304) is decolonial in the sense of "[...] thinking from the outside and in a position subaltern epistemic vis-à-vis the epistemic hegemony that creates, constructs, erects an exterior in order to ensure its interiority".In other words, an education that breaks with the breakdown of the epistemic colonization process, operated mainly by the curriculum and its elements resulting.
Regarding the ways in which epistemic colonization operates, according to Mometti (2021) we have two types of operators, which are: cultural-epistemological and power.The first concerns the values and beliefs that are transmitted and reproduced through language in each knowledge.Thus, when we work a whole school life with textbooks containing only male and white scientists when dealing with Physics, the knowledge that is built in students, implicitly -that is, what is operated -is that Physics is made by and for white men.
This may seem superficial, but through discursive analysis it is possible to identify such relationships in the educational process, as presented by Rosa and Sachet (2021) when dealing with the subject in Math Education, for example.
The second operator, that of power, has as its epistemic basis the Foucaultian notion that power does not act only in the macro world, that is, through relations of order and submission, but mainly through language.So much so that Foucault (2014) directs us to what he defines as microphysics of power, since it is precisely between the lines that the main panopticon operates.
In this way, from the concepts of operators we can categorically establish what is analyzed and interpreted from documents and speeches.

Methodological design
For the development of this case study, we selected the High School curriculum published in 2020 by the São Paulo State, Brazil, as a first source of information (São Paulo, 2020).This choice is justified, because this region that concentrates the greatest wealth, besides being an economic center and centralizing more than half of Brazilian production.Thus, studying the curriculum developed for the schools of this region is equivalent to seeking evidence of cultural aspects that influence the maintenance of an epistemic colonization process.
Here, it is important to remember that the economic aspect is the fundamental basis for any form of colonization, be it economic, military, territorial and/or epistemic.This means that when we consider the curriculum produced in the richest region of Brazil, we are, in fact, seeking to understand the ways in which such wealth is built and maintained, since the main argument revolves around capital accumulation.
This, moreover, can be observed when we assume part of Brazilian history, especially in the 327 years of slavery.Without the slaves, the colony Brazil and, later, the Empire of Brazil, would be nothing.Today, more than three centuries later, the black-African historical and cultural erasure is still present, a fact that can be evidenced by the mandatory introduction of the teaching of Afro-Brazilian history and culture in schools only from 2010 onwards.
Furthermore, for the purpose of delimiting the object of study, only the part that defines the pedagogical skills necessary for the development of Physics Education in high school was analyzed.
We justify this choice by the fact that the curriculum, in addition to bringing the contents expected to be developed in a certain area of knowledge, also provides the ways in which such content should be taught.Thus, when we analyzed the statements prescribed to guide the teacher during the process, we were able to extract information about the beliefs and values present in that curriculum.So, the information collected in the curricula basically took place through the statements of written speeches.
As a methodology for transforming information into analysis data, we opted for the discursive analysis (DA) by Pêcheux (2015).Besides, we started our data extraction from two floating readingsfirst contacts with the enunciated discourses -followed by the formulation of heuristic questions to guide the discursive analysis.Thus, the discursive analysis in the aforementioned perspective followed the steps, in order of occurrence: (i) selection of discursive surfaces for analysis, (ii) identification and selection of discursive marks, (iii) description of the discursive object, (iv) description of the discursive process, (v) description of the discursive formation and, finally, (vi) interpretation of the ideological formation.
In addition, it is worth noting that the heuristic questions aim in DA to identify the "doors" to enter the analyzed discourse, that is, where we can enter to carry out its interpretation.The discursive analyst tries to understand the reasons why that particular discourse was uttered, going beyond mere explanations, but considering the context and even a historical-cultural limitation.
For this reason, when we chose DA as an analysis methodology, we tried to understand what are the beliefs and values that transpose the curriculum used in the context, to later seek to build a reading from the decolonial lens.
In a complementary way, and with the AD performed, we used two concepts that contributed to the interpretation of the studied curriculum, which are: (i) cultural-epistemological operator and power operator.
The curriculum used as a source of information for the present paper is structured on two pillars, which are defined as competencies and skills.So, the idea of competence refers precisely to the ability to perform a given set of actions for a given specific purpose.Thus, when we say that "such a student is competent to read and write", it means that he can manipulate all the cognitive devices necessary to read and write.
The notion of skill, in turn, refers to a specific action that, when organized with other actions, constitutes competence.For this reason, the skill usually starts with a verb, as it indicates action.Thus, the curriculum complete is organized as shown in Figure 1 below.But we assumed as a source of information only the high school part.
For this case study, only the statements that formed the discourses contained in the competencies referring to the Physics Education area were analysed.
Thus, the central axis that builds the curriculum is competences.But, regarding the formation of high school students, we have that "[...] this stage will comprise basic general training (common to all students), with a maximum workload of 1,800 hours, and training itineraries (diversified and flexible part), with a minimum load of 1,200 hours" (São Paulo, 2020, p.46).
In addition, around Natural Sciences and their Technologies we find 3 competencies, and a total of 26 skills distributed in these three competencies.It should be noted that the area of natural sciences comprises the disciplines of Biology (indicated by number 1 in the skill), Chemistry (indicated by number 2) and Physics (indicated by number 3).

Results and discussion
The São Paulo State curriculum clearly indicates what the student must "know" (in terms of knowledge, skills, attitudes, and values), above all, what he must "how to considering the mobilization of this knowledge, skills, attitudes, and values to solve complex demands of daily life, the full exercise of citizenship and the world of work (São Paulo, 2020, p.30).
In this way, the curriculum has as its central guideline the development of skills that seek to promote active social participation of the student, even if it is geared exclusively to work.
The analyzed discursive surfaces of the Physics Education curriculum were extracted from the competences that guide Physics content that must be worked on, and the table 1 shows the culturalepistemological operator obtained through DA by Pêcheux (2015).
Finally, in table 2 we present the power operator obtained through DA, followed by the respective analyzes.
Table 1.Analyse of discursive surfaces by competencies and culturalepistemological operator.Source: authors.

Discursive surface
Cultural-epistemological operator [competence 1]: analyse phenomena natural and processes technologies, based on interactions and relationships between matter and energy to propose individual actions and collectives that improve productive processes, minimize impacts socioenvironmental and improve the living conditions in local, regional, and global Values that guide behaviours related to production and consumption, highlighting word efficiency and sustainability.
[competence 2]: analyse and use interpretations about the dynamics of Life, Earth and of the Cosmos to elaborate arguments, make predictions about the functioning and evolution of living beings and the Universe, and support and defend ethical and responsible decisions.Knowledge understood as value confers the power of decision and, therefore, establishes ethical behaviour, that is, collective behaviour in a social group.Knowledge as an inducer of actions.
[competence 3]: Investigate problem situations and evaluate applications of scientific and technological knowledge and their implications in the world, using procedures and languages specific to Natural Sciences, to propose solutions that consider local, regional and/or global demands, and communicate their findings and conclusions to different audiences, in different contexts and through different media and digital information and communication technologies (DICT).
The incorporation of scientific language to live in society and transform in through the proposition of solutions.The application of knowledge for work efficiency enables consumption and, consequently, improves the quality of life due to the highlighted ideological base.Thus, power is conferred by capital -value, associated with knowledge.
[competence 2]: analyse and use interpretations about the dynamics of Life, Earth and of the Cosmos to elaborate arguments, make predictions about the functioning and evolution of living beings and the Universe, and support and defend ethical and responsible decisions.
In the second speech, knowledge is presented as an agent that confers power in a social group, leading to the understanding that those who hold it assume decisions and guarantee a position of power in a social group.
[competence 3]: Investigate problem situations and evaluate applications of scientific and technological knowledge and their implications in the world, using procedures and languages specific to Natural Sciences, to propose solutions that consider local, regional and/or global demands, and communicate their findings and conclusions to different audiences, in different contexts and through different media and digital information and communication technologies (DICT).
With the understanding and obtaining of scientific language, it becomes feasible to elaborate speeches that are grounded and, therefore, transmit certain standards and values.Consequently, this means a power relationship.Therefore, a scientific language confers power on the social structure.
The discursive surface extracted from competence 1 shows the presence of two speeches: (i) knowledge as value and applicability in work/production and (ii) sustainability.As we know, in many situations, the idea of sustainability is associated with a quality of life, giving values and standards that guide the behaviour of individuals in today's consumers society.
In this sense, we can say that there is a notable sense of value that operates the mechanism of this discourse, so we can identify it as the cultural-epistemological operator.Thus, regarding the development of Physics Education, such an interpretation leads us to the first decolonial lens evidenced by the analysed discourse.This lens concerns the materialization of values, traditions, and scientific standards that arrived in the Brazilian curriculum through the colonization process.Even after its independence, Brazil suffered numerous interferences in the political, ideological, and mainly, economic fields.Thus, Euro-USA-centric cultural patterns operated towards epistemic colonization.
In what concerns the discourse on applied knowledge to "improve" the productive processes and, therefore, increase the efficiency of the work aiming at more production with fewer expenses -capitalist logic -we noticed a power operator.
Regarding the discursive surface extracted from competence 2, can be observed that knowledge, understood as a set of specific knowledge in the area of Natural Sciences, confers decision-making power in a social group.Here, we can see that the knowledge generated and reproduced confers economic power and, as emphasized by Mignolo (2008) and Santos (2020), operates in the sense of a process of enculturation of the colonizer over the colonized, i.e, in the sense of epistemic colonization.
Likewise, assuming the already mentioned decolonial lens, we can say that the present case study presents the contemporary curriculum of Physics Education in São Paulo with strong indications of being epistemically colonized in the direction of neoliberal knowledge.
This can be evidenced by the discursive marks' giver for "defending ethical and responsible decisions", based on the accumulated knowledge.Thus, the number of verbs present on the discursive surface, according to Pêcheux (2015), shows the presence of behaviours that must or should, be incorporated through a cultural logic specific to the social environment.
So, the cultural-epistemological operator who moves this discourse deals with the patterns incorporated and, possibly, suggested through the acquisition of the knowledge of related Natural Sciences.
In addition, from the DA highlighted in table 2, we can observe that the discourse is based on the ideological foundation of knowledge as power, therefore it establishes a social hierarchy through knowledge.This means that, even though the ideological basis proposing standards and values that can be built through the decisions made by individuals belonging to the social group involved, pure knowledge is what has value, leaving aside the critical, democratic, and collective aspect.
Therefore, we note that epistemic colonization, in this case, occurs through the pure concept taught.
Finally, the discursive surface extracted from competence 3 brings as ideological bases in a single the propose the universalization of scientific knowledge through different media, guaranteeing the diversity of people for its understanding.In this way, through the DA on this ideological formation, we can identify that the objective of universalizing is to make certain content accessible and the most recognizable that can be achieved and, consequently, guarantee a character of validity before everyone who contacted it.

Conclusions
By this study we can conclude, initially, the São Paulo curriculum, regarding Physics Education, is directed towards a training totally focused on the technique and maintenance of the capitalist system, which, as we know, maintains the social disparity, and poses the question of merit as a unique category of access and social ascension.
In the second moment, and from the decolonizing theoretical perspective, we can see that the didactic content produced from this curriculum will not have cultural-scientific elements from Brazil, to allow the incorporation of standards and values resulting from other nationalities, generally, European and/or North American.
In addition, as this is a case study, and we cannot generalize our observations and interpretations to the entire Physics Education, but we managed to obtain elements that support the understanding of how the curriculum in São Paulo is formatted.Thus, through the proposed methodological design suggested for this study, we have a starting point to develop deeper and more complete analyses of the curriculum from the decolonial perspective.
Finally, the present study gave us elements that will contribute to rethinking physics teaching in São Paulo and, mainly, in Brazil, considering the autochthonous knowledge produced in the other countries of Latin and Central America, as well as in the effective introduction of the decolonial perspective in the Brazilian scientific curriculum.

Table 2 .
Analyse of discursive surfaces by competencies and power operator.Source: authors.