INTERCULTURALIDADE E EDUCAÇÃO INFANTIL: REFLEXÕES SOBRE A PRÁTICA PEDAGÓGICA

Abstract

Our objective with this article is to present the critical interculturality as a pedagogical tool that should be central in the constitution of the scenarios and contexts in Early Childhood Education.We use theoretical references from other scholars of interculturality and early childhood education, such as Candau (2016, 2008), Sarmento (2005), Walsh (2009, 2007), Tomazzeti (2004), Santiago, Akkeri and Marques (2013), among others.We situate Infant Education as a fundamental step in the ethical and intercultural formation of children, thinking about the social function of education as a training for democracy.The pedagogical work with cultural differences in Early Childhood Education is legally supported by the National Curriculum Guidelines for Early Childhood Education and other identity policies, such as Law n. 11.645 of 2008, which establishes the obligation to teach indigenous and Afro-Brazilian culture and history since Early Childhood Education.However, these laws are also confronted by neoliberal interests that invade educational policies.Given this, we present some possibilities and challenges for the construction of intercultural practices in this stage of schooling, we ask how pedagogical practices have been developed in Infant Education, in the sense of monoculture or interculturality?Has the pedagogical work in Infant Education been oriented by the diversity and difference in the structuring of curricula and practices?How has this work been going on?In the sense of homogenization, of monoculturality, or in the critical sense of considering differences as pedagogical advantage?As a conclusion, we point out that one of the main challenges of education today is to construct practices and contexts that treat the differences from a political, aiming at building a more democratic society, considering the right to difference.Building intercultural practices in early childhood education means giving up the monoculture of knowledge, of homogenization in favor of heterogeneity, of epistemicide by the construction of other alternatives of thought.(SANTOS, 2010).