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O papel dos manuais didáticos e das mídias educativasFOREWORDThe Latin American Regional Conference IARTEM BRAZIL 2012 was organized bythe Didactic Publications Research Group of the Universidade Federal do Paraná(NPPD/UFPR - Brazil), in collaboration with the International Association for Research onTextbooks and Educational Media (IARTEM), with the objective of bringing togetherinvestigators on themes related to textbooks and educational media.IARTEM is a network of associated researches who are interested in performing,spreading and discussing studies on school textbooks and educational media, as well asaiming to develop activities in related fields – such as teachers’ formation. Every two years,the association organizes an international research conference and publishes reports andscientific volumes with the results of the event.These conferences have been held in Sweden (1991), Finland (1993), Denmark(1995), Norway (1997), the Netherlands (1999), Estonia (2001), Slovakia (2003), France(2005), Norway (2007), Spain (2009), Lithuania (2011) and the Czech Republic (2013).Regional and local conferences have been held in between these international events, with theaim of enlarging the IARTEM’s base and spreading the association’s objectives. Theseregional events have also been important in establishing a network among researchers fromdifferent countries, especially outside of Europe.Over the last eight years, during the presidency of Prof. Dr. Susanne V. Knudsen, asignificant effort has been made to expand the association’s base to Latin America. This goalwas reinforced following the conference organized by Prof. Dr. Jesús Rodríguez Rodríguez inSantiago de Compostela, Spain, when the possibility of holding a mini-conference in Brazilwas discussed.The Latin American Regional Conference IARTEM BRAZIL 2012 was thenorganized with the aim of gathering researchers from the region who would be interested incarrying on the debates developed by IARTEM in the future. Moreover, it aimed atestablishing a work group that would feature the integration of local teachers from elementaryeducation schools.The Brazilian conference was organized around the theme “Challenges in overcomingsocial inequality: the role of textbooks and educational media”. This discussion is related tosome specific aspects of Brazilian school culture, such as: the presence of textbooks in publicschools as provided through the National Program of Textbooks, as well as the assessmentprocess used in this program; the analysis of the processes involved in distance learningprograms for teachers, which has expanded rapidly over the last decade and received largeinvestments of public resources; and the presence of technology in schools and social life,which has intensified the debate surrounding the relationship between subjects and media in acontext of accentuated social inequality.This theme was also chosen as it provides a suitable setting that enables a dialoguebetween the researchers from different Latin American countries and different Brazilianstates, and allows them to discuss the investigations’ objects and approaches and compareexperiences. It also provides participants with the opportunity to recognize common elementsin regard to the production and presence of textbooks and media in school life – and social life– in different contexts.Brazilian researchers were invited to open the Conference and were given the task ofhighlighting the different aspects that needed and deserved to be considered when discussingtextbooks and media. They also pointed to the challenges which the country faces inovercoming social inequality. The challenges for educational research were also illustrated,9