This paper's object of analysis is the academic production on the theme of education and childhood in the programs of graduate education in southern Brazil from 2007 to 2011. It aims to seek evidence of the dialogues of this production with education in childcare centers, pre-schools and schools. For the analysis, we have discussed some old dilemmas of educational research, particularly those involving the relationship between theory and practice since an evaluative perspective of the contribution of graduate education for primary and secondary education in Brazil requires examining the relationships between research and pedagogical practices in education systems. Without intending to establish a state of the art of the said period, we sought to identify the perspectives and analytical underpinnings of this body of research, which reveals the strengthening of possible dialogues between graduate education and educação básica (basic education)², from the opening of science to disciplinary and theoretical collaboration toward consolidating a science of education whose focus is the educational processes involving small children, considering their social and cultural concreteness. The analyses indicate the need to be alert to the risks of superficialization and generalization in which the interest in knowing the children and their childhood demands another step from the educational research conducted contemporaneously: the reevaluation of its specificity.
Education; Childhood; Educational research; Southern region