CURRICULAR NORMATIVITY IN EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION

the BNCC and the Mato Grosso Reference Document

Abstract

This study focuses on the meanings attributed to Early Childhood Education based on the National Common Curriculum and the Curriculum Reference Document for Mato Grosso. These documents are taken as textual instances of Early Childhood Education curriculum policy at the national and state levels. This is a documentary study that highlights the role of epistemic communities and their influence in the context of political textuality production. In this sense, we identify levels of normativity that emerge from the cascade logic, fostered by the processes of curriculum implementation since the standardization of the BNCC, which directs the centralization of fields of experience in the Early Childhood Education curriculum. As a result of this analysis, we understand that the BNCC and the DRC-MT differ in few aspects. The normative document of the state of Mato Grosso still seeks to reaffirm meanings based on the structuring axes of Early Childhood Education, such as interactions and games, the dichotomy between caring and educating, and proposals for curricular organization by fields of experience, which indicate approaches and strategies focused on literacy. Both documents, however, establish condensed levels of prescription in terms of experience planning. In addition, they promote the division of fields of experience, equating them with areas of knowledge and skills, which aligns them with the pedagogical organization of elementary school.