Os projetos de investigação nos anos iniciais: escutar e valorizar as infâncias

Abstract

This Undergraduate Thesis aimed to investigate how investigation projects developed with Elementary School children can contribute to the constitution of a school curriculum that values childhoods and the children’s participation. This objective was formulated by the following research question: “How can investigation projects in the early years of Elementary School serve as a possibility for learning, listening, and valuing childhoods?” Based on the qualitative approach premises, the research used bibliographic research and documental analysis as its procedures. The bibliographic research consisted of a literature review of men and women authors who contributed to the theoretical framework of the investigated theme. The documental analysis was developed based on legislations and normative documents that guide the early years of Elementary School curricula, as well as pedagogical documents made by 3rd-grade children from a private school classroom, during the development of a human body project. The data collected were analyzed based on the Content Analysis method of Bardin (1977). The study was organized in three chapters. The first one shows the methodological procedures of the research. The second one aimed to investigate how children and childhoods are portrayed throughout history and also explores the early years of Elementary School curricular organization, emphasizing a rupture in the continuity between Early Childhood Education and Elementary School. The third chapter presents the projects as a methodological strategy capable of thinking about the continuity of children's learnings and their participation in the curricular organization. Aside from this, when narrating the development of the human body project, it highlights its importance in ensuring the hundred languages of children. Based on the data analysis, the research showed that the investigation projects developed with children allow a more meaningful learning, given that the children’s curiosities and interests are given prominence. To constitute curricula that look at projects as a learning possibility, it is necessary that teachers and researchers keep on changing their pedagogical practices and developing academic research that deepens the investigation of this theme, as well as the Elementary School curricular structures.