Práticas e representações da institucionalização da infância: bebês e crianças bem pequenas na creche em Francisco Beltrão/PR(1980/1990)

Abstract

The study researches the process of babies and small children institutionalization, in the 80ties and 90ties in the city of Francisco Beltrão State of Parana. It focuses practices and representations involving babies and small children at nurseries schools. It discusses the history of childhood education and infancy history, reinforcing the history of children an day care centers. It pursues theoretical and methodological contributions of cultural history, it also uses theoretical resources from the sociology of childhood. Such references offer an analytical sample which allows, not only to focus a cultural dimension of the practices, but also how to face little children and childhood as an object of research, considering the active presence of this generational group in the society. The research implied in the collection of memories of people who have lived such experiences (professionals of nurseries schools and social assistance – DAS/SAS, Association of Protection to Maternity and childhood and LBA Regional Superintendence ) it also includes written and ichnographic documents. A content analysis was used oral history and documental analysis which has been taken all empirical data. For the analytical process they have been divided into four inter related axes: policies, practices, cultures and conceptions. The research elucidates the particularities of the “municipal project of the nurseries schools” of Francisco Beltrão and identifies some features of a culture of nurseries in such context. The analysis confirms the attendance /compensatory conception of conformation of the institutional practices of the 80ties, including the influence of Brazilian Legion of Assistance. It also notes the role performed by the Association of Maternity and Childhood Protection of Francisco Beltrão. It identifies the images of infancy – the poor child, the careless child, the submissive one, the biological baby, the participating and the baby member of social group. It analyses the presence of a professional group stamped by the maternal care. It identifies the organization from times that are structured in routines, valuing body care, different for every age and, the structuring of areas marked by the absence and improvisation. Finally, it identifies the presence of games and interactions which are characteristic ways of children and adult organization. In a whole, the investigation allows to conclude that the nursery school is a heterogeneous place, it expresses a conformating policy – designated by a representation of poor children – and, at the same time, it reveals the expression of the encounter culture, where the children and adults structure their own way of games and spaces occupation. In the final considerations, the discussion gather some conclusions that stands out the potential of investigations focusing the nursery schools culture.