This communication aims to present results of reflections between Freire and Bloch, based on the curricular proposal presented by Gonçalves (2011), developed for the initial training of educators of young people and adults, within the scope of Higher Education, subsidized by Freirean references and referenced in a critical-transformative matrix, assuming commitments to the decolonization of education, to the equity and autonomy of students. The questions that fostered the development of dialogues between Freire and Bloch were based on the gaps in the initial training courses for a Degree in Pedagogy in Brazil, defended by Gonçalves (2011), which little focus on the theoretical and methodological specificity of this minority group: Education of Youth and Adults (EJA) in Brazil. The investigations took a historical approach and were developed using action research procedures in the structuring and development of a specific discipline in the 3rd semester of the Pedagogy course at a University of Greater São Paulo, encompassing the construction and development of a proposal curriculum for critical and reflective initial pedagogical training, constituting educators committed to the equity and specificity of Youth and Adult Education. Using the Freirean framework, concepts stand out, such as the recovery of knowledge from experience, the reading of the world and the word in the teaching and learning process, but, above all, the importance of the pedagogical praxis of the educator in dialogue with Marc Bloch seeks the decolonization of education, looking at groups neglected for decades in their reading of the world and rescuing the historiography of men and women who have been silenced for so long. The student of Youth and Adult Education must be guaranteed the basic right to access and remain in school, but this student must also be guaranteed the right to diversity, as well as respecting their knowledge and their culture, in a pedagogical practice, which Freire (2005) called Pedagogy of the Oppressed, considering the differences of economic and socially minority groups, in the exercise of guaranteeing their rights. And such change begins, in the case of Youth and Adult Education in Brazil, with the commitment to guarantee and exercise equity and with the guarantee of public policies for specific training of educators. Although Youth and Adult Education still persists as a social debt, however, today, it must be treated in Brazil, above all, as a right for men and women, who, for economic and social reasons, were unable to have access to schooling, at regular age. In this sense, and in dialogue with Freire and Bloch, both educators and researchers must believe in and seek education in the action of critical optimism, recognizing its historical political-pedagogical role, therefore, without slide into what Cortella (2006) called naive pessimism, in which education is seen as a mere instrument of power and domination of society.

A presente comunicação tem o objetivo de apresentar resultados de reflexões entre Freire e Bloch, com base na proposta curricular apresentada por Gonçalves (2011), desenvolvida para a formação inicial de educadores/as de jovens e adultos, no âmbito do Ensino Superior, subsidiada por referenciais freireanos e referenciada em uma matriz crítico-transformadora, assumindo compromissos com a descolonização da educação, com a equidade e autonomia dos/as educandos/as. Os questionamentos que fomentaram o desenvolvimento dos diálogos entre Freire e Bloch apoiaram-se nas lacunas dos cursos de formação inicial de Licenciatura em Pedagogia no Brasil, defendidas por Gonçalves (2011), que pouco enfocam a especificidade teórica e metodológica deste grupo minoritário: a Educação de Jovens e Adultos (EJA) no Brasil. As investigações assumiram uma abordagem histórica e foram desenvolvidas, utilizando-se de procedimentos da pesquisa-ação na estruturação e desenvolvimento de uma disciplina específica no 3.º semestre do curso de Pedagogia de uma Universidade da Grande São Paulo, englobando construção e desenvolvimento de proposta curricular para formação pedagógica inicial crítica e reflexiva, constituindo educadores/as comprometidos/as com a equidade e especificidade da Educação de Jovens e Adultos. Mediante o referencial freireano, destacam-se conceitos, como o resgate do saber de experiência feito, a leitura do mundo e da palavra no processo de ensino e de aprendizagem, mas, sobretudo, a importância da práxis pedagógica do/a educador/a em diálogo com Marc Bloch (2001) busca a descolonização da educação, olhando para grupos negligenciados por décadas em sua leitura de mundo e no resgate da historiografia de homens e mulheres por tanto silenciados/as. Deve ser garantido ao educando/a da Educação de Jovens e Adultos o direito básico do acesso à escolarização e nela permanecer, mas a esse/a educando/a, também, deve ser garantido o direito à diversidade, assim como respeitados os seus saberes e sua cultura, numa prática pedagógica, que Freire (2005) chamou de Pedagogia do Oprimido, considerando as diferenças dos grupos econômicos e socialmente minoritários, no exercício da garantia de seus direitos. E tal mudança se inicia, no caso da Educação de Jovens e Adultos no Brasil, com o compromisso da garantia e do exercício da equidade e com a garantia de políticas públicas de formação específica do/a educador/a. Embora a Educação de Jovens e Adultos ainda persista como uma dívida social, no entanto, hoje, deve ser tratada no Brasil, sobretudo, como um direito de homens e mulheres, que, por questões econômico-sociais, não puderam ter acesso à escolarização, na idade regular. Nesse sentido, e em diálogo com Freire e Bloch, tanto o/as educadores/as, quanto o/as pesquisadores/as devem acreditar e buscar a educação na ação de um otimismo crítico, reconhecendo seu papel histórico político-pedagógico, portanto, sem deslizar para o que Cortella (2006) chamou de pessimismo ingênuo, em que a educação é vista como um mero instrumento de poder e dominação da sociedade.

In this work, we explore, from a historical perspective, how the notion of practice became a core component in the stricto sensu graduate level studies of teachers of elementary education in Brazil. This tells us who we are and what we must know as teachers of Sciences and Biology. The work articulates research projects funded by the CNPq and Faperj, all of which were developed within the confines of the History of the Curriculum Study Group. It is especially interesting to us to perceive how practice, when included in the conceptual and institutional infrastructures of school education, became ‘naturalized’, with its meanings disputed, but its presence unmistakable. In the undertaking of this task, our research files included academic productions that focus on Professional Master’s Degrees in the field of the teaching of Sciences and Mathematics. These courses emerged in 2000 amid the creation of the field of teaching Science and Mathematics, an initiative of seven graduate programs previously allocated to the field of Education, replete with disputes within a heterogeneous disciplinary community. Using the descriptors ‘professional master’s degree in science teaching’ or ‘professional master’s degree in biology teaching’ in various databases (Google Scholar, Scielo and CAPES journals), we selected one hundred and sixty-two productions from 2001 to 2023 that address the topic in question. In specific terms, we chose to analyze the eight works (seven articles and one master's thesis) that focus on the nature of the educational products developed within the courses rather than the products themselves. In dialogue with Michel Foucault, historians (Reinhart Koselleck) and curriculum experts (Kathryn Kirchgasler; Thomas Popkewitz), we adopted a discursive approach to the History of the Curriculum as History of the Present, perceiving history as a relationship of power, a science that is produced in (and of) the present, and in which experience and knowledge are mutually constituted. In the analysis, we focused on the goals of educational products and their relationship with the notion of research that has historically regulated stricto sensu graduate studies, as well as the rules for their production. We found that professional Master’s Degree courses are considered powerful both in terms of strengthening the field of Education as a field of knowledge and for producing social and economic effects through education. In both cases, it is the notion of practice that articulates academic and professional demands, with the educational product (which is a course requirement, alongside the dissertation) being the device that operates and produces relationships and strategies between discourses, institutions and measures. It therefore regulates the knowledge to be taught and the teachers suited to this task through ongoing training at the stricto sensu graduate level. In this scenario, it helps to constitute the ‘truths’ of Science and Biology teaching, reorganizing past experiences and possible futures amidst knowledge and power games.

In 2007 a Danish chocolate company entered a partnership with the Danish NGO IBIS to fight child labour especially within the cocoa industry in Ghana. The focus was on local school projects in Ghana helping children out of hard work in the cocoa production and into education, but a small textbook ‘Glimpses of Ghana. Stories about people, schools, and cocoa’ (Vestergaard et al., 2009) was also produced and was to be used for free in Danish public schools. The book consists of short contributions, spinning together themes of (de)colonialisation, cocoa production, football, local school projects and good eating habits.The Danish chocolate company has a history of producing teaching materials and offering teaching activities to public schools. In the newer textbook the question of (de)colonialisation is upfront. However, it is an element present in most of the company’s teaching materials and activities (films, factory visits, workshops, educational boxes) on offer to Danish school children in the period from 1950 to 2024. This paper sets out to explore how matters of (de)colonization is directly and indirectly addressed in the company’s engagement in the educational field. Drawing on on actor network theory and specifically on the notions of problematizaton’/‘intressement’/‘enrolment’/‘mobilization’ (Callon, 1986; Fenwick & Edwards, 2010; Latour, 2005), it asks the question of how the postcolonial is framed and translated into school curricula through the private company’s shifting relations with diverse actors such as professional producers of films and commercials, textbooks and their authors, national ministries of education and NGOs. Viewing the company’s material teaching objects and practices as part of broader networks makes it possible to consider the situated complexity and translation of how the stories of (de) colonialisation are told and also how they take shape through the various networks the individual actors drags into the new constellations, e.g. connecting to industrial production, school projects in Ghana but also including relations to the commercial world as well as to health education and more classical curricular expectations on the other. Through this lens, the paper takes up how the actors involved lean into the question of (de)colonialisation differently and yet shapes the performance of each other as to how to tell and relate to the postcolonial stories told. Finally, the analysis will make use of Tim Ingold’s work (Ingold, 2011, 2015) as to discuss how the postcolonial stories are potentially weaved into the Danish school curricula creating specific openings and lines of connection.

This study examines gender representations in Brazilian textbooks intended for Early Childhood Education in schools. These books began to be used at this educational level recently, starting in 2018. The communication presented here focuses on fifteen core titles used by children aged four to five years and eleven months. Examples include "Adoletá" (Cruz; Silva, 2020), "Iniciando o Aprender" (Sgroglia, 2020), "Mundo das Coisas" (Valle, 2020), and "Desafios - Educação Infantil" (Bianco, 2020). These titles were approved by the National Textbook Program (Programa Nacional do Livro Didático - PNLD) in 2022, the primary avenue for purchasing educational materials in Brazil, justified by a discourse promising greater equity in access to schooling. The study aims to identify, systematize, and analyze gender-related images (illustrations and photos) within the pages of these books designed for young students. The objective is to examine how these representations are constructed and conveyed. How do they contribute to the formation and consolidation of gender symbols, norms, and identities among young readers of this material? The theoretical and methodological framework of this communication is based on Thompson's Depth Hermeneutics (1995), Bardin's content analysis (2016), and Gaskell's image analysis (2002). It also draws on gender theories, particularly those developed by historian Joan W. Scott (1995; 2005; 2012). This study can contribute to decolonial studies by understanding how gender relations are constructed and how they engender power dynamics. Textbooks for Early Childhood Education are part of a long history of this educational artifact, a powerful tool used by the state in shaping personal and national identity perceptions, categorizations, memories, and interpretations (Choppin, 2002; 2004; Peled-Elhanan, 2019). Amidst the gender controversies sparked by the far-right Bolsonaro government (2019-2022) and educators' concerns about the use of textbooks in Early Childhood Education, examining how these materials circulate gender images helps map how they convey different identities and (re)produce historically established social roles. Gender analyses of textbooks have been a research focus in Brazil, signaling concerns about existing prejudices and stereotypes (Silva, 2003; Moura, 2020; Oliveira, 2020). This communication aims to highlight gender configurations in the book images, understand their social production, and explore how our society can oppose, hierarchize, and naturalize differences between sexes, reducing them to strictly biological and physical characteristics (Vianna; Finco, 2009). This allows for direct reflection on gender asymmetries established by power relations and how they can produce and reproduce gender stereotypes and prejudices that reinforce inequalities, limiting child development. This research is part of an ongoing doctoral thesis at the Faculty of Education at USP (University of São Paulo) and can contribute to the debate on public policies for gender equity, diversity, and inclusion in Early Childhood Education.

Este estudo examina imagens de gênero veiculadas em livros didáticos brasileiros destinados as escolas da Educação Infantil. Esses livros passaram a ser usados nesse nível de ensino recentemente, a partir de 2018, e a comunicação aqui proposta toma como fontes nucleares quinze títulos utilizados por crianças de quatro a cinco anos e onze meses, como por exemplo: Adoletá (Cruz; Silva, 2020), Iniciando o Aprender (Sgroglia, 2020), Mundo das Coisas (Valle, 2020), Desafios - Educação Infantil (Bianco, 2020). Eles foram aprovados pelo Programa Nacional do Livro Didático (PNLD) de 2022, que é a principal via de compra de material educacional no Brasil, justificado por um discurso que promete maior equidade no acesso à formação escolar. Ao identificar, sistematizar e analisar imagens (entre ilustrações e fotos) ligadas ao gênero nas páginas dos livros destinados aos alunos pequenos, objetiva-se verificar como as representações são construídas e dadas a ler. De que modo elas contribuem para a construção e consolidação de símbolos, normas e identidades de gênero junto às crianças-leitoras desse material? Em termos teóricos e metodológicos, esta comunicação parte da Hermenêutica de Profundidade de Thompson (1995), da análise de conteúdo de Bardin (2016) e da análise de imagens de Gaskell (2002). Também recorre às teorias de gênero, especialmente as que são elaboradas pela historiadora Joan W. Scott (1995; 2005; 2012). Assim, esta comunicação pode contribuir com os estudos decoloniais, pois permite compreender como relações de gênero são construídas e de que modo engendram relações de poder. Os livros didáticos da Educação Infantil integram uma longa história desse artefato escolar (Choppin, 2002; 2004), instrumento poderoso e utilizado pelo Estado na percepção, categorização, memória e interpretação para a determinação de identidade pessoais e nacionais (Peled-Elhanan, 2019). Em meio às polêmicas de gênero provocadas pelo Governo Bolsonaro (2019-2022), de extrema direita, e das críticas e preocupações de educadores acerca do o uso do livro didático na Educação Infantil, o seu uso com os alunos pequenos e o modo como eles fazem circular imagens de gênero permite mapear como esses materiais veiculam diferentes identidades e se (re)produzem lugares sociais historicamente consolidados. As análises dos livros didáticos na perspectiva de gênero têm sido interesse de pesquisa no Brasil, sinalizando alertas no que diz respeito a preconceitos e estereótipos existentes (Silva, 2003; Moura, 2020; Oliveira, 2020). E esta comunicação pretende evidenciar as as configurações de gênero nas imagens dos livros, compreender o caráter social de produção, a maneira como a nossa sociedade pode se opôr, hierarquizar e naturalizar as diferenças entre os sexos, reduzindo-a a características estritamente biológicas e físicas (Vianna; Finco, 2009). Com isso, possibilita refletir diretamente sobre as assimetrias de gênero que são estabelecidas pelas relações de poder e, elucidar como ele pode produzir e reproduzir estereótipos e preconceitos de gênero que reforçam desigualdades limitando o desenvolvimento da criança. Esta pesquisa integra uma tese de doutorado, ainda em desenvolvimento, junto à Faculdade de Educação da USP, e pode contribuir para o debate sobre políticas públicas de equidade de gênero, diversidade e inclusão na Educação Infantil.