Research on Physical Education: an overview of the decade of the 1990s

Abstract

The Physical Education scientific production in Brazil has significantly advanced since the creation of post-graduation programs (Master, Ph.D.). In the 80’s, the main theoretical approach was the Positivism. The main purpose of this paper is to verify whether the previously observed theoretical approach is maintained in the research developed in the 90’s, after the incorporation of different human and social theoretical frameworks. This research was based on the analysis of abstracts from thesis and dissertations written during the decade of the 1990s. The results showed that: a) the Positivist approach can be observed in 56,5% of the abstracts; b) the phenomenological-hermeneutical one significantly advanced (42%); c) the critical-dialetic approach is used in only 1,5% of the researches; d) USP and UFSM are the leaders in the Positivism production; e) UGF and UNICAMP have more scientific productions based on the phenomenological-hermeneutical approach.