If everything is History, why do we continue to study Pre-history at school? The concepts of History and Pre- history in contemporary school books

Abstract

The work problematizes the presence of the concepts of History and Prehistory in the History textbooks, approved by the PNLD 2017-2019. Our intention is to demonstrate the strength of the Brazilian historiographical tradition in the didactic literature, in the way of organizing the contents, themes and concepts in the Didactic Book, without changing the grammar of the historical narrative. We use conceptual assumptions such as History of Concepts (KOSELLECK, 1992), History (BLOCH, 2002), Prehistory (TRIGGER, 2004) and Textbook (FREITAS, 2009). To analyze textbooks, we used Content Analysis (BARDIN, 2010) to understand the meanings that circulate in school works. As a result of the investigation, the data indicates that, even after the requirements of the PNLD, the textbook narrative remains organized in a quadripartite format (Ancient, Medieval, Modern and Contemporary History) and with a Eurocentric semantics, although it is observed that the book incorporates new meanings to the terms History and Prehistory over the years. This change in the meanings that the concepts carry, allows us to affirm that the contemporary history textbooks are in line with the epistemological production of the field of History, therefore, they seek to consider the different subjects and the multiple historical experiences.