A falta de limites : processos de moralização infantil em uma instituição de educação de crianças pequenas em Porto Alegre

Abstract

The aim of this research is to analyze cultural discourses and practices around processes of infant moralization, based on the notion "child without boundaries".This notion is thought here as a device for adult moral regulation, present in intergenerational relationships, especially in a context of a community child education institution, in the city of Porto Alegre. Educators - working women - resort to judgments, accusations and complaints when they think about the behavior of children and when they identify that there are children "without boundaries" in the daily institutional. For this relational problem, the educators affirm that the children "need routine", mainly, those "without boundaries", since they challenge the processes of normatization, of institutional disciplinary. According to field observations, educational practices were verified based on a logic of constant control over the actions of the littles ones, based on the school routine. The perspective of the educators are also directed to the outside of school, that is, to the relatives or responsible ones, who seem to "fail" in the processes of education of the children and, consequently, demanding of the educators a moral "education" that they do not want to fulfill, since for them the role of kindergarten and preschool is to teach, leaving the task of educating to the competence of the family. In this educational context, dialogue with the children is also opened and it is observed that children, with their particular histories and perspectives, are few considered as participating subjects and able to contribute to the daily work in the institution. They feel and perceive the daily adult rhythm, they seek to resist in some way, but there are power relationships, and a predicted reproduction in the activity schedule. There are conceptions of education, childhood, adulthood and the very work of early childhood education. Based on data and analysis, this research seeks to reflect on the need to improve more democratic educational practices in relationships between adults and children and allowing spaces for children's agency and not only a continuity of a model of intergerational education based on the norm and on the nostalgia of an authority lost in the past that needs to be rescued.