This paper analyses both the stability and the curriculum changing mechanisms produced in the Colégio Pedro II, which have influenced the course of Science as a school subject in upper elementary school during the 1960-1970'. Based on written and oral sources, the researcher states that institutional aspects had contributed to the fact that the influences from the Science Education innovation movement could be processed in the school subject. The institutional aspects were related to the school subject low status due to the fact that it had a general characteristic, it was less preferred by the head of department and it had not a specific physical space for the lessons. Those characteristics allowed room for changes in a long-term traditional institution in which curriculum decisions used to be centralized on the heads of departments themselves. Such curriculum changes had articulated innovations to teaching contents and practices from the past, and have invented a new tradition that could join the traditional/old to the modern/new. Through this process it was possible to maintain the school subject prestige both internally and in a broader external level.
Curriculum; Science as a School Subject; History of School Subjects