A qualidade da educação infantil Brasileira: Alguns resultados de pesquisa

Abstract

The article discusses data obtained by a review of empirical researches about the quality of early childhood education in day cam centres and preschools in Brazil, divulged between 1996 and 2003. The sources were the main education journals published in the country and the papers presented at the most important scientific meeting of the area, The National Association of Graduate Studies and Research on Education (ANPEd) Annual Congress, at the Work Group on The Education of the Zero to Six Years Old Children. The Information gathered was grouped following the main criteria for quality at early childhood education institutions, according to the literature: teachers training; curriculum; infrastructure; educational practices and relationship between centres and families. The general picture obtained by the review suggests a dynamic but contradicting reality, the reveals the enormous distance between the legal definitions and the real day by day situations confronted by the majority of the children and adults in the early childhood education institutions.