Impact of Knowledge of Natural Sciences on ENEM Performance - Considerations about Scientific and Technological Inequality to Social Justice

Sep 6, 2026

Upload by Bintang

The study examines how knowledge of Natural Sciences relates to achievement in the ENEM, using a sociology of education and sociology of science perspective. It compares student performance across areas of knowledge in the exam and contrasts candidates from public versus private schools. Preliminary evidence is used to argue that the presence of scientific laboratories in schools can be associated with performance improvements, while the analysis mobilizes scientific inequality and cultural goodwill to interpret microdata from the 2017 ENEM.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages29

Reading Time1 h 13 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Social inequality and educational impacts

Context in Brazil and international comparison

Background and framing of the debate

Impact of Knowledge of Natural Sciences on ENEM Performance: Considerations about Scientific and Technological Inequality to Social Justice Diego Navarro, Matheus Ianello, Felipe Muneratto, Graciella Watanabe Keywords Inequality; National High School Exam; Sociology of Education; Natural Sciences. Abstract This paper sets out from the perspective sociology of education and sociology of science, aiming: analyze the performance of students in nature sciences compared to other areas of knowledge in the National HighSchool Exam; analyze the performance of candidates from public schools and private schools; present preliminary considerations that indicate how the presence of scientific laboratories in schools show some evidence of improvement in performance. The debate goes through by mobilizing the concept of scientific inequality and cultural goodwill to propose an interpretation of data that allows a comparison between the performance in natural sciences of students from several school systems by comparative analysis among public and private schools. The data selection it reports on the microdata of the National High School Exam (ENEM)—2017 edition —which was investigated the results of students from the final year (senior year) who scores between 600 and 1000 points in natural sciences in order to compare these results with other areas of knowledge. The data show that students from public schools have proportionally more significant performance (between fields of knowledge) in hard sciences (and writing) than students from private schools. In addition, it is found in this range of score of the analysis a disproportion of representativeness of students from public schools on objection of private ones that can be interpreted as a marked characteristic of social and educational inequality in the country. Submitted on 26 october 2020 Accepted on 23 march 2021 Published on 13 october 2021 [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ RBPEC 21 | e36746 | 1)[ RBPEC 21 | e36746 | 1](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ RBPEC 21 | e36746 | 1)–29 | 1 Navarro, Ianello, Munerato, & Watanabe Introduction The problem of social inequality has marked the work of researchers in different subfields of education (Peregrino, 2010; Peugny, 2014) . The educational analysis that starts from this perspective aims, among different categories of analysis, such as economic, ethnic and gender differences, to indicate to what extent the social and cultural distinctions brought by students to the classroom can impact on learning and interactions with other actors as teachers, coordinators and the school community (Setton, 2011). While such research deals with these aspects, they enable debates beyond learning in the classroom and allow to cover such discussions about the future of young students and how their professional choices are not exclusively due to personal desire, but can also be associated what is known in the literature as “choice related to destiny”(Rocha & Perosa, 2008). This perspective is strongly influenced, albeit not only, by what Bourdieu and Passeron (2013) already pointed out about the destiny socially reserved for certain social groups. In the Brazilian case, the complexity of the problem is due to the territorial dimension and the social and cultural distinctions that are inevitable within a country with continental geography (Gramani, 2017). To get an overview of what Gramani says (2017) it can mobilize data from 2015 National Survey by Household Sample (PNAD/ IBGE, 2015), which indicated that the population of young people between 15 and 17 years “was 10.637.610; and the schooling rate was 85% . Among these young people, 1.593.141 were out of school; 1.863.158 were still in elementary school and 83.633 are illiterate”(Krawczyk & Silva, 2017, p. 14). By focusing on Secondary Education, in 2016, the enrollment rate for this phase of education in relation to Br

FAQs

What does the paper analyze regarding ENEM results?

It analyzes students’ performance in Natural Sciences compared with other knowledge areas in the ENEM, focusing on how results differ across school contexts.

How does the study compare public and private school candidates?

It compares candidates from public schools and private schools, emphasizing differences in proportional performance within score ranges across knowledge areas.

What preliminary factor is discussed as potentially improving Natural Sciences performance?

The paper discusses that the presence of scientific laboratories in schools shows evidence of association with improved performance.

Sep 6, 2026

Upload by Bintang