Resumen

DIAS, Adelaide Alves  y  VASCONCELLOS, Vera Maria Ramos de. Concept of autonomy in preschool educators. Temas psicol. [online]. 1999, vol.7, n.1, pp.9-21. ISSN 1413-389X.

Recent changes in the Brazilian legislation on Infant education show autonomy as one of the main educational purposes. This research, using a co-constructivist perspective, has aimed at investigating the infant educators' concept of autonomy and at understanding how that concept interfere with their educational practice. The main point of the study has been to show that the construction and development of the concept of children's autonomy shared by infants' educators defines their pedagogical practice. The research has been conducted in two periods (1998-1999) involving 34 infants' educators working in Rio de Janeiro. A training course (10 meetings) and the content analysis of oral and written reports (interviews before and after the course) have been the strategies used to collect and analyze data. The results obtained have indicated changes in the educators' perception of pedagogical work and have confirmed a move from an individualistic to a collective concept concerning the process of construction and development of infants' autonomy.

Palabras clave : Autonomy; infant education; moral development.

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