Ácidos e bases: um mapeamento histórico e epistemológico dos conceitos

Abstract

This qualitative study was structured into three articles, each aligned with the overarching objective of investigating how the foundational concepts underlying the notions of acids and bases—currently taught in both Basic and Higher Education in Brazil—were historically constructed. The findings indicate that the didactic mediation of these concepts in secondary and university-level textbooks operates through selections, hierarchizations, and simplifications which, while pedagogically functional, result in significant epistemological distortions. It is argued that the historical and ontological ruptures inherent in the scientific development of these theories have been largely erased, giving way to linear narratives (Arrhenius → Bronsted-Lowry → Lewis) that obscure the dynamic nature of scientific knowledge and contribute to the formation of Bachelardian epistemological obstacles. At the secondary level, a phenomenological approach centered on Arrhenius predominates, whereas at the higher education level, a Bronsted-Lowry framework with symbolic formalism is dominant; however, in both contexts, the ontological dimension of Lewis’s process theory remains marginalized. These curricular choices are shown to reinforce alternative conceptions and to detach theoretical content from relevant applications. Consequently, the study emphasizes that responsible didactic mediation must transform historical ruptures into pedagogical tools, presenting theories as responses to specific problems, integrating macroscopic, submicroscopic, and symbolic dimensions dialectically, and connecting conceptual frameworks to real-world contexts.