Between prescribed competencies and possible learning: recontextualizations of mathematics teaching in the New Brazilian High School in a public school in Alagoas

Abstract

This article examines how changes introduced by the New Brazilian High School reform were recontextualized in Mathematics teaching at a public state school in Craíbas, Alagoas, based on teachers' and students' perceptions. With a qualitative emphasis supported by descriptive statistics, the case study combined bibliographic research, document analysis, and field investigation through an in-person individual questionnaire administered to 25 teachers and 30 regular upper secondary students. In the specific corpus for the subject area, the open-ended responses of 5 Mathematics teachers were analyzed. The findings show that the competency- and skills-based curricular reorganization affected teaching planning, requiring the redesign of lessons, stronger content contextualization, and continuing teacher education for the pedagogical appropriation of the proposal. From the students' perspective, Mathematics remained one of the lowest-performing areas, with the greatest difficulties involving the interpretation of problem statements and, secondarily, mathematical calculations. The study concludes that curricular change alone does not ensure improvements in mathematics learning, since its effectiveness depends on teacher mediation, institutional conditions, and pedagogical work focused on mathematical language.