A Revista Criança e a Educação Infantil no Brasil: entre (in)definições e (re)significações

Abstract

Based on the interest in Brazilian Early Childhood Education, an attempt was made to unveil its historical construction process in the country between 1982 and 2008. For this purpose, the Revista Criança, periodical with a great repercussion among educators in this time period, produced by the Ministry of Education, was used as a reference and object of research. Thus, in order to accomplish the goal of understanding how Early Childhood Education was constituted in the country based in the selected object, 46 issues of the Revista Criança were analyzed. The study focused on the ‘Articles’ section, based on three analysis categories: child conception; teacher's role; and the function of Early Childhood Education. Furthermore, the material was periodized into four periods. The periods are not dissociated, and although in each of them certain ideas stand out at the expense of others, it is noted that the same ideas are reframed and remodeled in other periods. Thus, each period was assigned with a title which summarizes the highlighted ideas at that time, namely: 1st The monitor and the practical guidelines for health, care and education; 2nd The Federal Constitution and the search for pedagogical intentionality; 3rd The child as a person with rights and teacher education; and 4th Child protagonism and the search for innovative practices. Based on two main conceptual tools: the grammar of schooling (TYACK; CUBAN, 1995) and the discourse on practice (DEPAEPE, 2005; HAI, SIMON, DEPAEPE, 2015; 2016), it was concluded that both, the constructed journal’s practical discourse, as well as the grammatical constituent points of Early Childhood Education, revealed certain continuities in all periods of the Revista Criança, in a constant process of reframing ideas, practices and conceptions. Such results led to the Thesis ‘construction that Brazilian Early Childhood Education has always been, and still remains, in search of its definition, and in this process there are more permanencies than great ruptures. In this sense, the Revista Criança represents a locus for understanding the complex historical and cultural relations waged in Early Childhood Education in the country. Therefore, it is expected that this Thesis will contribute to the understanding of Brazilian Early Childhood Education, besides to supporting new paths and possibilities in the face of the challenges found in these spaces.