Pensamento crítico como proposta para o exercício do pensar ante a cultura das fake news

Abstract

The problem of fake news has increasingly permeated the school context, directly affecting students in the later years of lower secondary education, as they are active participants in the digital environment. For this reason, this study aims to promote the development of critical thinking among ninth-grade students at Evandro Bessa School (Santa Bárbara neighborhood, São Luís, Maranhão, Brazil) in response to the culture of fake news. To this end, we developed a pedagogical intervention for the teaching of Philosophy, aimed at fostering critical thinking skills and the critical evaluation and investigation of fake news. In the first chapter, we examine the culture of fake news as a harmful phenomenon within the digital sphere and analyze its implications for contemporary society. In the second chapter, we address philosophy and philosophy education, highlighting the centrality of critical thinking as a fundamental competence for philosophical inquiry and for resisting the spread of fake news. In the third chapter, we present the empirical component of the study, in which we adopted a qualitative research approach based on a structured didactic sequence implemented in two stages. The first stage was conducted in the school setting and involved conceptual instruction, as well as activities focused on argument construction and argument identification. The second stage took place in an online learning environment, where news items were shared for students to investigate and critically assess whether they were accurate or misleading. This didactic sequence enabled students to develop critical thinking skills and greater autonomy in the confirmation and critical analysis of fake news.