Early Childhood Education in Brazil: Interdependent Relationships Between Young children and Adults

Children’s education constitutes itself over an historical process, an important phenomenon to be discussed socially, culturally and politically, mobilizing research in diverse fields of knowledge. We have located ourselves in the debate about children’s education which in Brazil is carried on as the first step of basic education for children under five. This chapter discusses the relations between different social figurations overlaid in the institutionalizing process of childhood in Brazil, dealing with the child’s education at public institutions, kindergartens and preschools. We establish a dialogue with Norbert Elias’s figurational theory, more specifically with his concepts of figuration and power (Elias, Introdução à Sociologia. Edições 70, 2008; Sobre os seres humanos e suas emoções: um ensaio sob a perspectiva da sociologia dos processos. In A. Gebara & C. Wouters (Eds.), O controle das emoções. Editora Universitária da UFPB, 2009). Making use of methodologies and diverse sources, we focus on aspects of the relation between adults (professionals of educational institutions), children and families. The investigations were developed in the city of Dourados, in the State of Mato Grosso do Sul, a region in the Brazilian Mid-West.