Early Childhood Education: A case Study About the Teaching Work

Abstract

Primary education in Brazil, in its birth in the nineteenth century, was conceived as a female activity. Regarding day care centers and preschools an association was established between the identity of the preschool professional and motherhood. The aim of the research presented here is to analyze how care practices common to dealing with young children, which are associated with a maternal, role affect the work of preschool teachers. The Clinic of Activity was taken as a theoretical framework. A case study was conducted based on data from an intervention in which six female teachers who worked in a preschool center participated. The records produced during the intervention were submitted to contrustritive-interpretative analysis. The results indicated that the preschool female teachers, based on the affective relationship established with the students, seem to regain the authority that deteriorates with the violence that hits the school in other levels of education. As for the maternal reference, it becomes a teacher knowledge built by a daily learning with the children and is incorporated into the professional culture.