Desenvolvimento de habilidades socioemocionais na escola: perspectiva de professores e gestores da educação infantil

Abstract

Socio-emotional development is receiving increasing attention in the educational scenario owing to its positive effects on the evolutionary trajectory of children and adolescents. This dissertation involves two studies that were carried out with the aim of going deeper into this theme. The first study presents a non-systematic review of literature that addressed socio-emotional development in early childhood education, more specifically, in the Brazilian context. Conceptual issues and the inclusion of this development in official documents of the Ministry of Education (MEC) were considered. In this study, scientific articles from 2010 to 2019 were searched in the Dialnet, ERIC, PsycINFO, Periódicos Capes and BIREME bibliographic databases, totalling 18 articles altogether. Three pillars of analysis were considered: conceptual questions about this evolutionary aspect; its inclusion in the National Curricular Reference for Early Childhood Education (RCNEI) and in the National Common Curricular Base (BNCC); as well as in school daily life. Publications indicate that this aspect of development encompasses a set of cognitive and socio-affective experiences experienced since childhood through family and school interactions. The insertion of this socio-emotional dimension in the documents analyzed is considered to be an educational task, although its textual inclusion in these documents is not very explicit. The second study has an empirical bias that, through qualitative methodology, investigated the socio-emotional development in school through the collection of data on the conceptions and practices of teachers and administrators of public pre-schools. An identification questionnaire was applied to 17 (female) teachers and cinco (female) administrators. In addition to the questionnaires, interviews were conducted, which were transcribed and submitted to content analysis. This second study considers that administrators understand that socio-emotional development can be developed through day-to-day pedagogical practices, project pedagogy, and descriptive reporting on an evaluative basis. It should be noted that most administrators report experiencing difficulties with teachers as regards the task of promoting socio-emotional development in the classroom. The analysis of the data collected indicates, among other aspects, that teachers understand this aspect of child development as a means that involves social, emotional and behavioural characteristics, whereas administrators give priority to social characteristics. Both teachers and administrators understand development as innate and learned, and they report that the socio-emotional dimension was addressed in their initial and/or continuing training. As regards the aim of promoting the socio-emotional aspect of pre-schools, teachers ascribe this task to the family and the school; while administrators consider it to be an educational task of the school. All those interviewed considered that the pre-schools are unprepared to promote the socio-emotional aspect, pointing out gaps in the training and lack of preparation of the teachers, as well as challenges in the articulation between theory and practice. The second study indicates the need to improve public educational policies in the sense of including, with proper educational intent, the task of promoting socio-emotional development in early childhood education. It is believed that the knowledge generated by the two studies can contribute to a reflexive praxis of teachers and administrators acting at this level of schooling, encouraging further studies that deepen the knowledge on this theme, which is still rather scanty in Brazil.