Early Childhood Education and Curriculum Reforms: (Between/Intra) Views of Pedagogical Coordination

Abstract

This article reports, in part, research that aimed to interpret the perceptions of pedagogical coordinators of Early Childhood Education in the Municipal Network of São José do Rio Preto-SP-Brazil, regarding the stage of public consultation in the process of curriculum reform chained by curriculum documents: Common National Curriculum Base and the Paulista Curriculum. The study was supported by the Habermasian theoretical framework, the concepts of Communicative Action and Public Sphere. The research included a documentary analysis of the national, state, and municipal curriculum documents and a field survey through individual and collective interviews. When comparing the curriculum documents we noticed that, despite changes in different areas, instrumental rationality has tried to colonize Preschool Education through prescriptive curriculum documents. The participants' speeches made it clear that the short deadlines for public consultation of the documents made more in-depth and critical debates impossible. In the collective conversation, the participants expressed themselves freely and verbalized their speeches in a critical and public way, seeking Understanding, indications of the establishment of a Public Sphere. The work reverberated the need for the educational actors to be involved in the discussions of curriculum policies more deeply and wisely, to have more reflexive and critical participation.