Child(ren) and childhood(s) in the processes of production of curriculum policies for early childhood education: an analysis from the three capitals of the southern region of Brazil

Abstract

This article’s theme is the meanings produced about child(ren) and childhood(s) in the processes of formulating curricular policies for the education of children aged 0 to 5 in Brazil. These processes are marked by colonizing perspectives based on the ideal of a global child and childhood and problematizing the norm by recognizing factors of heterogeneity that mark childhoods and children’s education. It starts with an empirical study that compares two mandatory national curricular policies in force, the National Curricular Guidelines for Early Childhood Education (2009) and the National Common Curricular Base (2017), and their impact on subnational policies in three cities in the South of Brazil, namely: Curitiba, Florianópolis and Porto Alegre. The analyses reverberate different local movements that confirm the idea of global children and childhood and oppose this perspective, revealing resistances and alignments, not without tensions, in formulating and implementing curricular policies for early childhood education. A common point is the absence of a decolonial perspective underpinning the educational projects in curricular documents.