This work was conceived within the discussions that propose to analyse connections between power and early childhood. Choosing as its main focus the National Curriculum for Early Childhood Education - Referencial Curricular Nacional para a Educação Infantil (RCN) -, this study intends to problematise the ways governmental xmechanisms operate to govern childhood. This research, inspired by Michel Foucault’s ideas, seeks to show how mechanisms of power/knowledge concerning childhood are produced within pedagogical relationships. In this article, an analysis of the ";government"; of childhood is undertaken, examining propositions presented in the document and stressing the ways technologies of the self operate. Related to political technologies and governmental rationalities this work emphasises the RCN as a mechanism that proposes to produce children’s subjectivities and that aims to organise, impart and control the circulation of knowledge in early childhood institutions.
early childhood education; children’s subjectivities; technologies of the self; power mechanisms