Bebês, por entre vivências, afordâncias e territorialidades infantis : de como o berçário se transforma em lugar

Abstract

The present study took place at the City Nursery ‘Santa Inês-Poção’, in the city of Cuiabá – Mato Grosso state. It aimed to investigate the socio-spatial markings of said nursery and its influence on the behavior of babies there. The theoretical contribution was guided by the cultural historical perspective of Vygotsky (1989, 2007, 2008, 2009) and his Brazilian collaborators Molon (2003), Pino (2005) and Prestes (2010). Also, multidisciplinary studies on space by Tuan (1980, 1983), Lopes (2005, 2009) and Jodelet (2002). In conjunction with those, the propositions of Gibson (1986) about the notion of affordances and the concept of perejivanie, Vygotskian considerations, taken again by Prestes (2010). This theoretical perspective, combined with education, indicates what babies need in their first year of life. Such discussions are extensively debated in this study, which has been especially inspired by Rossetti-Ferreira et al (2003), Ferreira (2002, 2004), Campos de Carvalho (2004), Guimarães (2011), Ramos (2010), among others. Furthermore, the present work aims to understand the process of space appropriation by the babies in their singular and collective exercise of being in the world, as well as the relational features produced by the subjects between themselves and their adult or infant peers, in the context investigated. This is a qualitative research, Geertz (1989) ethnographic type, with interpretative nature. Thirty infants participated in the study, duly authorized by their parents or guardians, and also six nursery workers who accompanied the group of babies. Data was collected through participative observation, photographs and video records, during the babies’ free activities time. Said methodological tools were intended to capture the minutiae of infant behavior in an environment of collective education. The results indicate that the nursery environment can be understood as a context of social and spatial constructions, where young children, through their experiences, establish relations with space and with their peers in the activity of signifying the world to them presented. Please note that the interactive events presented by the infants revealed that the recognized opportunities, the explorations of cultural artifacts available in the environment of collective education, function as important resources that young children use to communicate, act and signify the world around them.