Ocean and Coastal Research 2021, v69(suppl):e21041 1 Ocean Literacy, formal education, and governance: A diagnosis of Brazilian school curricula as a strategy to guide actions during the Ocean Decade and beyond Carmen Edith Pazoto 1 , Edson Pereira Silva 2 , Luiz Antonio Botelho Andrade 3 , Jana Menegassi del Favero 4 , Camilla Ferreira Souza Alô 5 , Michelle Rezende Duarte 6, * 1 Fundação Municipal de Educação de Niterói (Rua São Pedro, 108 - Centro, Niterói - 24020-055 - RJ - Brazil) 2 Universidade Federal Fluminense (Rua Alexandre Moura, 8 - São Domingos - Niterói - 24210-200 - RJ - Brazil) 3 Prefeitura Municipal de Niterói - Secretaria Municipal de Ciência, Tecnologia e Inovação (Rua Visconde de Sepetiba, 987, 5º andar - Niterói - 24020-206 - RJ -Brazil) 4 Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro - "Chat with Neptune" (Av. Carlos Chagas Filho, 373- Cidade Universitária - 21941-971 - RJ - Brazil) 5 Fundacão Municipal de Educacão de Niterói (Rua São Pedro, 108 - Centro - Niterói - 24020-055 - RJ - Brazil)) 6 Universidade Federal Fluminense (Rua Alexandre Moura, 8 - São Domingos - Niterói - 24210-200 - RJ - Brazil) * Corresponding author: michellerezendeduarte@yahoo.com.br Submitted: 16-February-2021 Approved: 31-December-2021 Associate Editor: Alexander Turra © 2021 The authors. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons license. Ocean and Coastal Research http://doi.org/10.1590/2675-2824069.21008cep CASE REPORT ISSN 2675-2824 Ocean Literacy (OL) was proposed by UNESCO as a goal for the Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development ( Ocean Decade) aiming to (1) increase understanding of the importance of the ocean, (2) signi fcantly infuence communication on related subjects, and (3) facilitate informed and responsible decision-making about the ocean and its resources. Formal education is essential to expand the reach of OL, providing people with tools to engage in coastal and marine issues consciously and knowingly. To this end, content analysis of school curricula can help planning strategies, especially to empower citizens to implement public policies. This study assessed the extent to which OL-related terms and words are present in Brazilian curricular documents at federal (National Curriculum Parameters-PCNs and Common National Curriculum Base-BNCC) and regional (Federative Units curricular guidelines- RCs) levels. Qualitative (content analysis) and quantitative analyses (descriptive and non-parametric statistics, and multivariate analysis) were performed. The number of occurrences of OL-related words and terms were registered and counted. Nineteen words were found, totaling 797 citations (a frequency of 0.0001 in the total number of words referring to content). The number of citations were higher in BNCC-based RCs than in PCN-based RCs (Kruskal-Wallis test, p = 0.0009). Principal component analysis separated the documents into two groups, one related to BNCC-based RCs of Northeast, North and Midwest regions, with a higher number of OL related terms, and the other group with the PCN based RCs of these same regions plus those documents of Southeast and South regions (principal component 1 explaining 97.90% of the total variation and having 0.93 correlation with the total frequency of citations). General results indicated that Brazilian production on felds and themes related to OL is still concentrated in national journals, books, and booklets, thus with a limited impact. In same way although school curricula in Brazil have a larger number of topics on marine environments than do other countries, they showed heterogeneity among Federative Units, but generally with the topics still representing a very small fraction of Brazilian curricula. Thus, it is necessary to expand the contents related to the ocean and marine environments in curricula to provide students with basic knowledge about the importance and functions of these environments, as well as their conservation. Therefore, results here emphasize the need to implement OL to highlight the importance of knowledge of the oceans and enable citizens to discuss marine conservation policies and promote ocean sustainability. This study provided some strategies to increase OL in formal education and, hence, reach various stakeholders, which is fundamental to implement the United Nations Ocean Decade in Brazil and the Global South. ABSTRACT Descriptors: Marine science, Public policies, Stakeholders, Citizenship, Quantitative analysis.