Textbooks under debate

The theme of this research is the textbook in Brazil as a historical-political object; it seeks to learn about its trajectory and to understand which and how educational guidelines influence the publication of textbooks, as well as to learn about the contents of elementary school history textbooks and how teachers are involved in the process of choosing the material to be adopted and how it is used in the classroom. Considering the aims and objectives proposed for this study, our approach is of a qualitative bibliographical-documentary nature, and field research was carried out using a semi-structured questionnaire to public school teachers who work in elementary schools in Jatai-Go. The bibliographical research made it possible to identify that the textbook is one of the oldest instruments present in school education, having survived for centuries. The textbook in Brazil points to the history of teaching in our country, school practices and changes in content, changes that are explained by political and social transformations.