Contributions of cultural-historical studies with a critical perspective to scientific production in educational psychology

Abstract

The present study seeks to map the productions in the scope of educational and school psychology and, more specifically, in the scientific articles that show a critical perspective in this area. This is done by emphasizing the importance of monitoring scientific production and its possibility of indicating the quality and directions taken by the production of knowledge. In order to achieve this, we have conducted a bibliographical search of the online versions published between 2007 and 2011, available in the journal Psicologia Escolar e Educacional (Educational and School Psychology), which is a biannual publication of Associação Brasileira de Psicologia Escolar e Educacional (ABRAPEE - Brazilian Association of Educational and School Psychology). Overall, 134 articles were analyzed. The results indicate that 17 articles (12.69%) were classified in the critical perspective. Each study discusses important aspects of educational and school psychology, focusing on the role of school psychologists, teacher education, and the critical stance of school agents. All the articles selected were based on the cultural-historical theory, one of the critical approaches of psychology used to help understand educational phenomena, which are considered in this study as essentially psychosocial. This survey can be seen as a platform to evaluate the academic undergraduate and graduate background of psychology students in the field of education and similar areas, and it provides a deeper view on how contemporary educational and school psychology has been configured and its impact on professional practices guided by a critical perspective.