Finding room for philosophy in a large-scale assessment: an overview of philosophy’s presence over Enem’s twenty years of existence (1998-2018) ^{1 2 3 4}

Abstract

Although the official curricular documents in Brazil in the last couple of decades recommend that philosophy be taught during high school, its presence in Enem was slow and inconstant. From an analysis of the evolution of the number and coverage of philosophy questions in the exam, this paper illustrates some challenges and possibilities that the exam offers to the implementation in curricula. This study gains particular relevance with the recent publication of Brazil’s new common core curriculum (BNCC – Base Nacional Comum Curricular) and the reform of high school education. This article is divided into three parts: 1) a quantitative overview of philosophy coverage over Enem’s history; 2) an analysis of the skills mobilized by philosophy questions over the exam’s different phases; 3) considerations about BNCC from the possibilities and challenges to philosophy presented in the body of this article.

Keywords
High school philosophy; large scale assessment; curricular documents,; Enem; BNCC