TO NAVIGATE IS NECESSARY: HISTORICAL FRAMEWORK OF EDUCATIONAL POLICIES FOR EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION

Abstract

This  article aimed to investigate the production of meanings and tensions within the Early Childhood Education curriculum, constructing a historical panorama regarding educational policies for this stage of education in Brazil, from the 1990s to 2023. Adopting a qualitative approach, grounded in Moreira (2009), which describes the research journey as flexible and articulated with interests and the interpretation of investigation situations. For data collection, we used semi-structured interviews conducted in August 2023. The empirical field for data collection comprised three municipal schools, two from Nazaré da Mata and one from Carpina, both in Pernambuco. For data analysis, we employed René Barbie's Transversal Sensitive Listening approach and Bardin's thematic categorical content analysis. The results indicate that understanding the early childhood education curriculum is fundamental for comprehending education, children, childhood, play, and the tensions that reverberate within the curriculum, particularly because the teacher is the one in the classroom making interventions and working directly with the child to give meaning to learning experiences.