Brincadeiras de “mamãe e filha/o” na educação infantil: apropriações de relações de gênero por meninas e meninos em um contexto coletivo

Abstract

This dissertation investigated how children between 2 and 3 years old appropriate gender relations in the context of a public Brazilian Early Childhood Education School in Belo Horizonte. The research was grounded in Cultural-Historical Psychology and Gender Studies, establishing a theoretical dialogue between these fields. We understand gender as a historical, cultural, and social construct that develops through interaction. Just as human development occurs through relations with the environment and others, children's gender experiences are also constructed in these interactions. We argue that children not only comprehend gender relations but also appropriate femininities and masculinities in their daily experiences. In this dissertation, we used the database of the Childhood and Schooling program, which contains 897 hours of filmed material, photographs, and interviews with families and teachers. We analyzed the 2019 footage, the third year of fieldwork when the children could communicate verbally. We identified 453 events in 2019, of which one was selected for detailed analysis. The key event, titled “Valéria's Care for Laís”, highlights how girls and boys appropriate femininities and masculinities in the “mother and child” play pretend. This event demonstrates that children not only reproduce gender norms but also create new ways of experiencing them, moving creatively and critically within gender boundaries. Furthermore, the analysis reveals that 2 and 3-year-old children are capable of questioning gender stereotypes, showing that childhood is a potent space for the construction of new possibilities for femininities and masculinities. It is argued that the use of emerging pedagogies in Early Childhood Education can ensure that girls and boys embrace gender relations less stereotypically.