Settled children and early childhood education in/of the countryside: contexts and meanings

Author(s)

Juliana Bezzon da Silva

• Document type: Master's Dissertation
• Press: Ribeirão Preto.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras de Ribeirão Preto (PCARP/BC)
• Defense date: 2012-12-07

Examining board members

Ana Paula Soares da Silva; Jaqueline Pasuch; Sonia Regina dos Santos Teixeira

• Advisor: Ana Paula Soares da Silva

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to understand childrens experiences in the day-care centers located in rural settlements and to analyze the meanings about early childhood education in these contexts. In order to intend the objectives, it were realized field researches in day-care centers of two rural settlements located at northwest region of São Paulo State. The procedures adopted were: participant observation with register on diaries during one month in each context; semi structured interviews with families (four participants of each settlement), teachers (two participants each), other education professionals (in one of the settlements: principle and scholar bus monitor; in the other: principle and pedagogic coordinator) and five year-old children (four participants each). The constructed material was analyzed and integrated based on the theoretical and methodological perspective of Network of meanings (Rede de Significações), together with Elsie Rockwells studies on ethnography at schools contexts and John B. Thompsons methodology for content analysis. The outcomes demonstrated: (a) strong presence of meanings about alphabetization observed in early childhood education activities and in the speeches about the importance of alphabetization for early childhood to improve her life conditions; (b) necessity of political-pedagogic and administrative autonomy for countryside schools; (c) repercussion of teachers formation and their life trajectory on the pedagogic interactions with children of countryside; (d) children experiences marked by interaction with nature and with agricultural activities; (e) possibilities of articulation between rural context and pedagogic practices. The educational institution were demonstrated as a privileged local for intentional and pedagogically planed contact with nature, technology, urban and rural worlds, corresponding with an education that has as a priority the integral development and the opening for all human knowledge. Furthermore, the rural settlement context was comprehended as a rich and challenging place for pedagogic activity, where children develop and demand explications about their reality and about the world. Altogether, the settled children development was comprehended related with the interactions between nature, people, farming and social movements, in profound relation with land. These interactions compose meanings about the world and the local context, which constitute part of the cultural development of children. The way of understand life in rural settlement, the nature and the possibilities to experiment her created meanings that allow us to question how the school, like a collective place of formal education, handles with and enlarges the possibilities of comprehension about relation between children and the world. (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 09/06668-8 - Early childhood education in rural areas: contexts and meanings from teachers, parents and children of pre-school
• Grantee: Juliana Bezzon da Silva
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master