O proinfância em Penedo: uma avaliação sobre a ressonância do programa na educação infantil do municipio

Abstract

The present study aimed to evaluate the resonance of the Proinfância program in the process of expanding the offer of places and improving the quality of childcare through a case study in Penedo - Alagoas. This research is part of a larger study called “The child, the city and the heritage: dialogues with the knowledge and practices of the Penedo and Eborense community”, coordinated by Profa. Dr. Lenira Haddad, who has Penedo as a reference city, which is why she defined herself as a city for this study. Data collection took place in three stages: the first was the characterization of the program's regulatory frameworks and the mapping of Proinfância in Alagoas from its inception until 2018, through document analysis. The second for the political-administrative characterization of Penedo's early childhood education, through interviews and questionnaires with the Municipal Secretariat of Education, document analysis; and the third step was the case study in which they were used as a collection instrument: interview with the principal and coordinator, questionnaire with the teachers, room assistants and parents or guardians of the children. The analysis was based on the theoretical-methodological frameworks of Stephen Ball's Policy Cycle (1992, 2001, 2014). The following authors were subsidized for reflection on issues involving political relations and practices related to the Program: Ramos (2011), Garcia (2014), Almeida (2015), Costa (2015), Nunes et al (2015), Vieira (2016) ) and Pires (2017). The study defends the thesis that the program has a great potential to induce municipal policies, which favors to identify in local reality strategies to build quality indicators for the early childhood education of the municipality. The data showed that Proinfância in the municipality of Penedo, despite not being able to complete 100% of all stages of the process of implementation of acquired units, resonated significantly in the local educational political context. Faced with influences from a macro policy, Penedo's current management has made a commitment to improve the quality of early childhood education through investments in the area. The penedense educational context presented the need to break with the two predominant strands in the pedagogical practices observed: the assistentialist - focusing on care related to care and custody; and another with an emphasis on literacy alluding to preparation for elementary school. The results encouraged to delineate quality indicators for local early childhood education with the intention of (re) structuring the pedagogical processes and (re) defining quality practices concerning the local reality.