Adherence to the textbook

a step backward that undermines the conception of childhood and the child in early childhood education

Abstract

The present proposal is an extension of the dissertation defended at the Graduate Program in Education (PPGE) of the University of Vale do Itajaí (Univali) in February 2024 and presented that same year at the XV Scientific Meeting of the Southern Region (ANPEd – South). This study was developed in response to the following research question: What conception of childhood and children is embedded in the adoption of textbooks for preschool? With the general objective of problematizing the textbook collections approved by PNLD 2022 for children aged 4 and 5, the research has as its specific aim: to infer the conception of childhood and children conveyed in these textbooks. We adopted documentary research as our methodological procedure, with a qualitative approach. The theoretical framework is supported by Sarmento (2004), Kohan (2007), and Larrosa (1998), which helped us understand the invention of contemporary childhood. Additionally, the study also drew on the works of Kuhlmann Jr. (1998), Malaguzzi (2001), among others. For the documentary analysis, we used the PNLD 2022 Call for Applications Nº 02/2020 (Brazil, 2020) and three textbooks selected within the scope of PNLD 2022. The documentary analysis consisted of examining parts and illustrations from the textbooks as units of meaning, in order to enable a detailed reading of these elements and to engage in a dialogue with the analysis categories from the perspective of content analysis technique, namely: Conception of childhood and the child as reflected in textbooks. The results indicate: a universal conception of childhood and a standardized model of the child associated with the textbooks. Thus, it can be asserted that the analyzed textbooks: appear to be very similar to the old and outdated “primers”; they focus on mechanical practices, disregarding children and their childhoods.