%0 Journal Article %T Alfabetiza o cientšªfica: uma possibilidade para a inclus o social %A Attico Chassot %J Revista Brasileira de Educa£¿£¿o %D 2003 %I Associacao Nacional de Pos-Graduacao e Pesquisa em Educacao %X Beginning with a characterisation of the school a recently modified scenario we analyse the teaching of science, generalising the observations for the different levels of formal schooling. We present science as a language for the description and understanding of the natural world which a rereading of Barthes supports. We assert that scientific literacy a scientific illiterate is one who does not know how to read the language in which nature is written could be responsible not only for facilitating our understanding of the world, but also for helping to transform it for the better. Scientific literacy is also seen as a possibility for social inclusion, being a handicap for it the presentism {exclusive link with the present, without a rooting in the past, and without perspectives for the future}, as well as scientificism {an exaggerated belief in the power of Science, and/or the attribution to it of only beneficial results}. Dogmatism, marked by positivism, is presented as one of the marks of a non-scientific literacy.scientific literacy, science as a language, science teaching, dogmatism %U http://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=27502209