Profissionais de apoio da rede municipal de educação infantil de Maceió: identidade(s), formação e profissionalismo

Abstract

The daily life of Early Childhood Education is permeated by the participation of professionals who occupy different positions and functions – teachers or not – and who share the processes of education and care as inseparable dimensions of the first stage of Basic Education. The research entitled “Support professionals from the municipal Early Childhood Education network of Maceió: identity(ies), training and professionalism” aimed to investigate the profile of support professionals who work with children up to 5 years and 11 months of age in the city of Maceió in terms of education, identity(ies) and professionalism. Starting from the premise that the integral development of children since babies occurs in interactions and games with their peers and adults, with care and education as inseparable tasks, the present study sought to look at the profile of support professionals in Early Childhood Education in the municipal network of Maceió considering productions that deal with the training of Early Childhood Education professionals (CERISARA, 1999; KRAMER, 2006, 2011; NUNES, CORSINO; DIDONET, 2011), in addition to legal documents about the first stage of Brazilian Basic Education , the findings on training, appreciation and career of employees of Early Childhood Education in Brazil (BRASIL, 2004, 2005, 2009) and the contributions of Penteado (2019) about support professionals in education. This is a qualitative research, carried out on and with support professionals for Early Childhood Education in the municipal network of Maceió, based on the narrative research approach, with the following data construction instruments: questionnaires in the first phase, and semi-structured interviews, on Monday. For data treatment, the procedures proposed by Bardin (2011) were adopted to analyze the content of interviews and questionnaires. The results show, in addition to other perceptions, that most of the support professionals have completed high school, but did not undergo initial training/guidance for work that considered the specificities of the daily life of an institution of Early Childhood Education. Such professionals demonstrate interest in participating in training for professional qualification, consider inadequate salary remuneration and understand their attributions as important for the development of children in Early Childhood Education institutions. Finally, we highlight the fact that the outsourced employment relationship is identified as the main factor that contributes to the precariousness of the work of these professionals in public education, a factor that is related to the (non) provision of quality Early Childhood Education.