SOCIAL EXPERIENCE OF THE PEDAGOGICAL COORDINATORS OF THE EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION¹

ABSTRACT:

This text aims to analyze the process of professional constitution of the pedagogical coordinators of daycare centers and preschools, based on the social experiences they have lived in Early Childhood Education. The article is conceptually based on the Pedagogies of Childhood and Early Childhood Education (FERNANDES; CAMPOS, 2015; ROCHA, 2001; SILVA, 2008; among others), articulated with the sociology of experience, formulated by François Dubet (1996). From the methodological point of view, the empirical material was produced through document analysis and interviews with six pedagogical coordinators from Turmalina, a city situated in the northern of the State of Minas Gerais, Brazil, and, consecutively, was submitted to content analysis (BARDIN, 1977). The analyzes of this material allowed to verify that they act from different logic of action to become professionals, which affects the construction process of their professionalities. The study highlights the emergence of an epistemological statute that defines the roles due to the pedagogical coordination of daycare centers and preschools, considering the sociopolitical and pedagogical specificities of Early Childhood Education.

Keywords:
Early Childhood Education; Pedagogical Coordination; Social Experience

RESUMO:

Este texto objetiva analisar o processo de constituição profissional das coordenadoras pedagógicas de creches e pré-escolas, a partir das experiências sociais por elas vividas no contexto da Educação Infantil. O artigo ancora-se conceitualmente nas Pedagogias da Infância e da Educação Infantil (FERNANDES; CAMPOS, 2015; ROCHA, 2001; SILVA, 2008; entre outros), articuladas à sociologia da experiência, formulada por François Dubet (1996). Do ponto de vista metodológico, o material empírico foi produzido por meio de análise documental e entrevistas com seis coordenadoras pedagógicas de Turmalina, cidade situada na porção setentrional do estado de Minas Gerais e, consecutivamente, foi submetido à análise de conteúdo (BARDIN, 1977). As análises desse material permitiram verificar que elas atuam a partir de diferentes lógicas de ação para se constituírem profissionais, o que incide no processo de construção de suas profissionalidades. O estudo evidencia a emergência de um estatuto epistemológico que defina as funções devidas à coordenação pedagógica de creches e pré-escolas, tendo em vista as especificidades sociopolíticas e pedagógicas da Educação Infantil.

Palavras-chave:
Educação Infantil; Coordenação Pedagógica; Experiência Social

RESUMEN:

Este texto tiene como objetivo analizar el proceso de constitución profesional de las coordinadoras pedagógicas de guarderías infantiles e instituciones preescolares, a partir de las experiencias sociales por ellas vividas en el contexto de la Educación Infantil. El artículo conceptualmente se ancla en las Pedagogías de la Infancia y de la Educación Infantil (FERNANDES; CAMPOS, 2015; ROCHA, 2001; SILVA, 2008; entre otros), articuladas a la sociología de la experiencia, formulada por François Dubet (1996). Del punto de vista metodológico, el material empírico fue producido por medio del análisis documental y entrevistas con seis coordinadoras pedagógicas de Turmalina, ciudad situada en la parte septentrional del estado de Minas Gerais, Brasil y, consecutivamente, fue sometido al análisis de contenido (BARDIN, 1977). Los análisis de este material permitieron verificar que ellas actúan a partir de diferentes lógicas de acción para constituirse en profesionales, lo que incide en el proceso de construcción de sus profesionalidades. El estudio pone en evidencia la emergencia de un estatuto epistemológico que defina las funciones debidas a la coordinación pedagógica de guarderías e instituciones preescolares, teniendo en vista las especificidades socio políticas y pedagógicas de la Educación Infantil.

Palabras clave:
Educación Infantil; Coordinación Pedagógica; Experiencia Social

INTRODUCTION

In this article, we aim to analyze the process of professional constitution of the pedagogical coordinators of Early Childhood Education and their interfaces with the organization of pedagogical work in daycare centers and preschools. Using data from a broader investigation, carried out at the master’s level, which aimed to analyze the process of organization and implementation of the curriculum in daycare centers and preschools in Turmalina, Minas Gerais (MG). Based on the speeches of professionals who work in this municipality², we discuss the specificities of pedagogical coordination given the collective organization of care and education practices, based on the social experiences lived by these workers.

The advances in the Brazilian educational policy, mainly after the publication of the National Curriculum Guidelines for Early Childhood Education (DCNEI- Diretrizes Curriculares Nacionais para a Educação Infantil) (BRASIL, 2010), represent the maturing of the understanding of the role of the State in the organization and public offer of vacancies for children from 0 to 6 years old since the mentioned guidelines delimit and ratify the educational specificities of the attendance of this part of the Brazilian population in collective spaces that deal with the care and education of babies and small children.

On the one hand, the DCNEI (BRASIL, 2010) advances by emphasizing the importance of democratic management and institutional collective work as structuring conditions for the fulfillment of the socio-political and pedagogical role of daycare centers and preschools, which is performed in everyday life from the construction of an educational proposal focused on children and their experiences. On the other hand, the lack of definitions of the professional attributions of the agents responsible for coordinating the educational work in these institutions creates a scenario of imprecision regarding the daily activities of the pedagogical coordinators. Thus, we problematize, along the lines of this text, the “place” of these professionals and their implications for the organization of collective care and education actions.

The academic production in the area of Early Childhood Education, both in Brazil (ALVES, 2011; BRUNO; ABREU; MONÇÃO, 2010; PEREIRA, 2015; SANTOS, 2015, among others) and abroad (CAGLIARI; FILIPINI; GIACOPINI, 2016; FILIPPINI, 1999; SAITTA, 1998; SAVIO, 2017, among others), considers that pedagogical coordination is one of the main pillars of collective care and education projects aimed at children up to 6 years old since it represents “[...] a programming tool, study, organization, verification and synthesis of the pedagogical project, [which] guarantees the principle of continuity of the educational experience” of Early Childhood Education institutions (SAITTA, 1998, p. 114).

The reference literature in the Brazilian educational field shows that pedagogical coordination in Early Childhood Education is a gap in the national scientific production (MONÇÃO; TRINDADE, 2019), which is strongly guided by managerial precepts, whose nuances are found in the school management of Elementary Education (FERNANDES; CAMPOS, 2015). In the national literature in the field of education, it is possible to identify that the work of pedagogical coordination in Early Childhood Education covers: i) the organization of educational work (individual and collective) about the organization of times, processes, environments, spaces, materials, groups of children; the analysis of routine moments; the construction of a proposal in which the children, their actions, their interactions, and their experiences are the center of the educational work (GALDINO; CÔCO, 2018; NASCIMENTO; CAVALCANTE, 2019). Likewise, the pedagogical coordination acts to ii) promote the development of the group of professionals who work in the care and education of children (MARTINS; BATISTA, 2019; MELLO; LUZ, 2015; SAVIO, 2017; SILVA; MACHADO; PACÍFICO, 2018). It is also an object of coordination work to iii) the implementation of the educational project of daycare centers and preschools, especially for the articulation of education and care practices; sharing the educational proposal with the families; the recognition of playing as a language through which children develop and which, therefore, is the structuring axis of educational work (BORGES, PANDINI-SIMIANO, 2019; CÔCO, GALDINO, 2016; FONTENELES; MARQUES; MELO, 2012). Furthermore, an approximation of the recent academic production in the Early Childhood Education area shows that studies that analyze the ways of building the professional experience of pedagogical coordinators who work in daycare centers and preschools are still incipient.

Thus, the reality of pedagogical coordination in Early Childhood Education is an invisible topic in the national education scenario for different reasons, highlighting: i) the lack of specific legislation that regulates the profession of pedagogical coordinator in Brazil; ii) the absence of training policies that pay attention to the organization of pedagogical work in kindergartens and preschools; iii) the low reverberation of this theme in the national academic production. We believe that this picture reveals a horizon in which the action records of the pedagogical coordinators who work in daycare centers and preschools are dispersed, and these professionals are forced to act actively in the construction of their professionality, sometimes aligning with the local legislation, sometimes establishing relationships between ends and means in the action process, sometimes acting from principles listed by them. Such dispersion allows us to understand that the professionality of the pedagogical coordinators results from the construction of their own social experiences (DUBET, 1996).

The object of study analyzed here concerns the professional construction of the pedagogical coordinators who work in Early Childhood Education. In this way, the questions that guide the writing of this article consist of: How do pedagogical coordinators constitute their professional status based on the experiences they have in daycare centers and preschools? What are the logics that guide the daily work of these professionals? What are the implications of this social experience for the improvement of pedagogical work in the first stage of Basic Education? We seek to debate these and other issues, given the data produced in a survey, whose fieldwork included conducting semi-structured interviews with professionals who work in Early Childhood Education institutions in Turmalina, Minas Gerais, in addition to analyzing legal documents that deal with the attributions of the pedagogical coordination in that municipality.

We noticed that the pedagogical coordination in the context of Early Childhood Education, even in the face of advances in the didactic-pedagogical plan and the recurrent discussions about the need to affirm the intentionality of educational practices in daycare centers and preschools, assumes a set of attributions that little (or nothing) have to do with the organization of collective work. Such practices are marked by inaccuracies and vagueness both in the instituted aspects - in terms of legislation - and in the instituting scope - of everyday actions (SILVA; FERNANDES, 2017), which ends up affecting the professionality of this subject and, consequently, the development of collective work.

In this way, we seek to contribute to the field of studies and research on pedagogical coordination in Early Childhood Education insofar as, through the analysis of social experiences lived during work and narrated by the professionals who are at the forefront of the organization of actions of caring and educating in daycare centers and preschools, we have the possibility of understanding the specificities of this field of activity.

PEDAGOGICAL COORDINATION IN CHILDHOOD EDUCATION AS A SOCIAL EXPERIENCE

Pedagogical coordination in Early Childhood Education is a relatively new time-space of professional activity in the Brazilian educational scenario, whose attributions have been established from non-linear socio-historical processes. Thus, to understand the social experience of the pedagogical coordinators who work in daycare centers and preschools, it is essential to carry out a critical examination of the characterization of this role within the scope of the public school and, specifically, of its configuration in the context of the first stage of Basic Education (ALVES, 2011).

Despite its relevance for the organization of pedagogical work, the role of the coordinator was established from a historical path of “[...] discontinuity and difficult recognition in Brazilian public policies, which affected the constitution of their professional identity” (FERNANDES, 2010, p. 1). In today's contexts of Basic Education institutions, including daycare centers and preschools, the attributions exercised by the pedagogical coordination show a picture of imprecision regarding the field of work of these professionals. In the context of the public school, the tasks of pedagogical coordination were established through the overlapping of the history of the Pedagogy course and the extinction of the role of school supervision, specialist in education, and non-teaching professional - whose nuances are found in the technicality that dates to the education during the military period (ALVES, 2011).

Changes in the way the school is organized, guided by capitalist production, are configured as factors that also contributed to the emergence of new attributions of pedagogical coordination (ALVES, 2011; FERNANDES, 2010). Thus, from the end of the 1990s, the autonomy of schools, so desired by progressive movements in defense of education (and consecutively by professionals in charge of pedagogical coordination), is gradually being replaced by concepts arising from the business area, marked by strong managerial appeals, characterized by the action of control bodies over education professionals, aiming at the “[...] calculated use of new techniques and artifacts for organizing social relations, based on competition, efficiency, productivity and achievement of goals, that is, a utilitarian morality” (BELLO; PENNA, 2017, p. 72).

On the one hand, the emergence of pedagogical coordination within Basic Education is marked by contradictions and setbacks, which greatly affects the performance of professionals who work in the organization of collective work in institutions that articulate situations of education and care for babies and young children. On the other hand, the historical split between daycare centers and preschools also configures a factor of imprecision of the “place” of pedagogical coordination in Early Childhood Education. The recognition of Early Childhood Education as the first stage of Basic Education results from the struggle of popular movements and women in defense of young children and their rights - thus, it highlights a process of mixture of discontinuity and ruptures with effects on the constitution of the professional status of pedagogical coordinators working in care and education institutions.

From a historical point of view, Early Childhood Education has always been seen from two different and sometimes opposing conceptions: welfare and education. The first was directed at the care of children up to three years old and commonly associated with custodial approaches aimed at the poorest populations. The second, with a more pedagogical approach, concerns the preparation of children for the coming and compulsory school. However, Kuhlmann Jr. (2003) considers it essential to transcend this dichotomous view that understands daycare centers and preschools as institutions with different and paradoxical approaches. For the author, the difference between the two institutions is following the people assisted, and not by their educational purposes. For him, historically, these two institutions (daycare centers and preschools) are not distinguished as pedagogical proposals, but rather as the public and the age group of the children they assist. In this way, “[...] it is the social and not the institutional origin that inspired different educational objectives” (KUHLMANN Jr., 2003, p. 54). In this case, the absence of a work project with predefined socio-political and pedagogical objectives, both in daycare centers and in preschools, based, above all, on the indissociability between care and education, composes a factor that further exacerbates the ambiguities surrounding the field of professional performance of pedagogical coordination in Early Childhood Education (SANTOS, 2015).

The transition of Early Childhood Education from the field of education assistance - from the new legal configurations inaugurated with the Federal Constitution of 1988 (BRASIL, 1988), with the Law of Guidelines and Bases of National Education (LDBEN) - Law No. 9.394 of December 20, 1996 (BRASIL, 1996) - and with the DCNEI (BRASIL, 2010) - is a great advance in public policies for childhood. With the establishment of this new regulatory framework, the Early Childhood Education area defends the idea of overcoming welfare and/or preparatory perspectives, trying to advance towards the definition of pedagogical projects that, based on the indissociability between care and education, recognize the right of children from 0 to 6 years old to public, free and quality education.

Given the reformulations in Brazilian educational policy about the full development of babies and young children, Early Childhood Education is defined as being complementary and shared with the actions of the family and the community, to care for and educate inseparably (BRASIL, 2010). This leads to the fact that the construction of the pedagogical proposal for daycare centers and preschools demands the joining of collective work and, in this sense, points to the relevance of pedagogical coordination that needs to articulate all educational work from the specificities of Early Childhood Education. However, how to carry out this task if we know little (or nothing) about the specificities of the coordinators' professional field of action? It is necessary to consider that, at the core of Basic Education, it is not clear about the field of action of pedagogical coordination, which is seen as a position (whose vacancies are filled by public tender) in some states and as a teaching role in other contexts - which it also has effects on pedagogical coordination in Early Childhood Education.

Based on the ecological approach of Urie Bronfenbrenner, Savio (2017) considers that there is a refraction in the field of action of pedagogical coordinators in the polyphony of voices and discourses that cross the construction of the identity of daycare centers and preschools. For this author, at a macro level, it is up to the pedagogical coordination to articulate the policy for legal guidelines that regulate and guide the pedagogical work. At an exsystemic level, coordination produces processes and guidelines that aim to support the decisions of Early Childhood Education professionals that relate to aspects external to the collective of teachers, while negotiating and assisting the group in the construction of shared meanings about the pedagogical work. At the meso level, the coordination acts to articulate important interlocutors for the educational work in daycare centers and preschools, especially regarding the relationship with families. Finally, at a micro level, Savio (2017) considers that pedagogical coordination helps professionals organize learning situations that emerge from children's everyday experiences. Thus, the coordination task, in addition to being complex and multifaceted, “[...] is not trivial and requires high and specialized professionalism. This opens up the question of their training, which obviously cannot be limited to the acquisition of psychopedagogical content, but which must provide training courses on educational practice” in a reflective and participatory way (SAVIO, 2017, p. 148) -which is still incipient in the Brazilian reality, due to the educational reforms of the 1990s that, among other issues, imposed managerial guidelines (and rationality guided by the precepts of New Public Management) to education professionals (BELLO; PENNA, 2017; MONÇÃO; TRINDADE, 2019).

Faced with this scenario, the pedagogical coordinators who work in daycare centers and preschools are faced with a multifaceted, complex, dispersed, and sometimes contradictory system of action, in which they must carry out work on themselves in the process of constitution as professionals in Early Childhood Education - which we analyzed as the construction of a social experience³ (DUBET, 1996). Thus, the theoretical production of Dubet (1996) constitutes an interpretative lens for understanding the professional field of action of the pedagogical coordinators who work in daycare centers and preschools, insofar as, when we focus on their social experiences, we evidence the exercise they perform daily to become professionals. In other words, this theory allows us to understand the work of professional socialization that they perform on themselves (DUBET, 1996).

For Dubet (1996), the concept of social experience becomes highly appropriate for the analysis of individual and collective behavior, as it is capable of identifying “[...] the nature of the object found in some empirical studies in which social conducts do not seem to be reducible to pure applications of internalized codes or to the chaining of strategic options that turn action into a series of rational decisions” (DUBET, 1996, p. 93). The starting point for this statement is the author's consideration that, currently, social behaviors - whether directed to individual issues or associated with regulatory dimensions of the collective sphere - are not fully gathered in the flow of everyday life. On the contrary, given the dispersion of the meanings of social life, conduct is guided by stable principles endowed with greater variability, and it is this heterogeneity that allows one to speak of experiences, defined by Dubet (1996) as the articulation of different logics of action by the individual in the process of becoming an actor, to maintain greater control over the different dimensions of life (personal, professional, social, etc.).

From the perspective of Dubet (1996), social experience is produced when actors must simultaneously manage different logics of action, whose origins are reaffirmed by the different logics constant in the social system. It is important to consider that, as formulated by the author, the social system is no longer presented to individuals as a unitary block, coherent and aligned to a single logic - as predicted by the classical currents of sociology⁴. The social system is revealed to the actors from the coexistence of systems structured by autonomous principles, sometimes competing, sometimes articulated, showing that the classic notion of society no longer has scope for sociological analysis.

In addition to the presence of these different action systems accessible to actors and which guide the construction of their daily conduct in Early Childhood Education institutions, the condition of a subject that is not fully socialized - essential to the sociology of social experience - is inherent to the social professional class of the coordinators who work in the organization of the pedagogical work within the institutions that constitute the first stage of Basic Education, due to the historical inaccuracies linked to their attributions (ALVES, 2011; FERNANDES, 2010; SANTOS, 2015).

For Dubet (1996), the articulation of the logic of action capable of guiding (or even regulating) the experience of subjects does not have a core, as it is not based on a single logic. According to the author, “[...] social experience, insofar as its unity is not given, necessarily generates an activity of individuals, a critical capacity and a distance from oneself” (DUBET, 1996, p. 94). In this way, the notion of experience suggests a cognitive activity, that is, it is configured as a way of attributing meaning to reality and, mainly, of verifying it, of experiencing it by the actor - an important factor in the process of understanding and the analysis of the professional constitution of pedagogical coordinators who work in Early Childhood Education.

For Dubet (1996), each social experience results from convergence, that is, from the combination of three logics of action corresponding to three major social systems: i) the logic of integration - anchored in the idea of social integration, which for a long time it was agreed to call community; ii) the logic of the strategy - based on the understanding of the social system as a competitive space - a kind of market - that foresees and promotes competitiveness between subjects; iii) and the logic of subjectivation - based on a cultural system, in which the actors' creativity cannot be reduced to tradition and utility.

The integrative logic corresponds to the orientation of classical sociology and encompasses the integration mechanisms present in each society. In this logic of action, the actor's identity aligns with the subjective version of system integration. In the logic of integration, identity is nothing more than the expression of the set of institutionalized values that were internalized by the actor through the social roles he played (DUBET, 1996). According to the author, this identity is often experienced as a story, as a personal narrative that distinguishes and differentiates the subject from others. In this way, the opposition “us/them” indicates the configuration of social relations associated with the integrating identity. Dubet considers that the social relations between them and us do not necessarily have to be hostile to be inscribed in the logic of integration. It is enough that they occur based on the recognition of a difference that maintains and strengthens the integrating identity. However, according to the author, on many occasions, conflict⁵ feeds back on individuals' sense of belonging and, consequently, their integration and identity.

The second logic of action pointed out by Dubet is the logic of strategy, which can be understood as an instrumental rationality, that is, a utilitarianism of action that aims to combine the intended purposes with the opportunities that emerge in and through the situation. In this perspective, society is conceived as a market, a competitive field, causing the identity of the actors to be conceived as a resource. In this way, it (identity) is defined in terms of status that designates the probability that an individual has of influencing others, that is, the relative position that he assumes thanks to the means linked to that position. Thus, what makes it possible to distinguish the integrating identity from the resource identity - since these two identities mutually influence each other - is the identification of the logic in which the action is registered (SILVA, 2008).

The third and last logic identified by Dubet (1996) is the subjectivation. It is the logic whose origin resides in the subject and manifests indirectly in the critical activity, “[...] the one that assumes that the actor is not reducible either to roles or to his interests, when he adopts a different view of integration and strategy” (DUBET, 1996, p. 130). In this way, this critical activity presupposes the existence of a cultural logic that the actor can distinguish from other logic. For the author, in this logic of action, the actor, through his reflexivity, the distancing movement he takes about integration and competition, using his creativity, can be experienced as a subject.

In short, it is necessary to consider that the idea of logics of action identified by Dubet (which he names as a sociology of experience) can constitute an interpretive lens for apprehending the experiences of the pedagogical coordinators of daycare centers and preschools in Turmalina, Minas Gerais, as it highlights the process of professional construction of these women.

METHODOLOGICAL PATHS FOR THE ANALYSIS OF THE PEDAGOGICAL COORDINATION EXPERIENCE

As what we know about the experience results from what the actors say about it, it is in the discourse that the categories that allow the understanding of the social experience are present (DUBET, 1996). Considering this assertion, we carried out fieldwork from May to August 2020 - relying on a research design that excelled in conversation with six pedagogical coordinators from Turmalina, a city located in the northern portion of the state of Minas Gerais.

Thus, we chose the interview as the main instrument of data production and was configured as a tangle of threads, points, and planes (TEIXEIRA; PÁDUA, 2006), whose connections needed to be perceived and interpreted by us, from a theoretical framework. Based on The sociology of experience by François Dubet (1996), evidenced the relationships between institutional regulation and the actions of coordinators in the contexts of their professional activities, without privileging one over the other.

The six pedagogical coordinators who participated in the interview promptly accepted the invitation and were interested in contributing to our study. All interviews took place individually, after agreeing on the best day of the week for each participant and started at the scheduled time, at 2 pm, taking place in the auditorium of the Municipal Secretariat of Education of Turmalina - a space kindly provided by the secretary to produce data through conversation with the coordinators. The interviews lasted an average of 60 minutes, with the shortest lasting 45 minutes and the longest lasting 1 hour and 35 minutes. The interviews were carried out according to a semi-structured script, divided into four blocks composed of at least five and a maximum of ten questions, which were recorded using different resources, such as recording of audiovisual files and notebooks (in which personal impressions of one of the researchers about the interviews were recorded).

Dubet (1996) considers that sociological analysis must be credible, that is, it must express the experience of the actors. According to the author, “[...] the most convincing theory, while responding to criteria of scientificity, will be the one that is closest to the actors' experience” (DUBET, 1996, p. 239). In this sense, verisimilitude presupposes a double requirement: on the one hand, it must comply with the theoretical-methodological assumptions common to researchers; on the other hand, it must pass, at the same time, through the scrutiny of the actors, as they perceive their speeches and actions represented in the analyses. Thus, after the eventual transcription of the conversations, we submitted the texts of the interviews to the scrutiny of the coordinators as a way of validating these records.

The next step used data interpretation, which was performed using the content analysis technique, which, according to Bardin (1977), is configured as

[...] a set of communication analysis techniques aimed at obtaining, through procedures, systematic and objective description of the content of messages, indicators (quantitative or not) that allow the inference of knowledge related to the conditions of production/reception (variables inferred) of these messages (BARDIN, 1977, p. 42).

As an analysis procedure, this technique transits between the extremes of scientific investigation, as it concentrates the methodological rigor characteristic of objectivity and the fertility arising from subjectivity, resulting in the elaboration of quantitative and/or qualitative notes that lead the researcher to a second reading of the communication, based on deduction, and inference (BARDIN, 1977). For this study, we chose to perform a categorical content analysis, due to its alignment with the research proposal and its scope in the “[...] application of direct (manifest simplifications) and simple discourses” (BARDIN, 1977, p. 153). According to Bardin (1977), it was necessary to process the information contained in the data produced, assuming a deductive process based on indicators, seeking to systematize them through thematic categorization.

The information obtained through the data produced in the interviews, when analyzed based on the theoretical contributions gathered here, showed important nuances around the constitution of the professional statute of the pedagogical coordination present in the institutions of Early Childhood Education.

BECOMING A COORDINATOR OF EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION THROUGH SOCIAL EXPERIENCE

The municipal legislation of Turmalina, about forecasting the positions and respective activities of the teaching profession (teachers and assistants), presents only Municipal Complementary Law 2, of October 25, 2017, which provides for the plan for positions, careers, and salaries of teaching staff (TURMALINA, 2017). In addition to this document, daycare centers and preschools have School Regulations that govern the attributions of the pedagogical coordinators who work in these establishments (TURMALINA, 2018, 2020).

We found that the professional who works in the pedagogical coordination of kindergartens and preschools in the municipality of Turmalina is called an Education Specialist - which already points to their inadequacy in the specificities of Early Childhood Education. Thus, according to the summary description of the position of the education specialist, provided for in Complementary Municipal Law 2/2017, this professional “[...] has the attributions of carrying out Guidance, Supervision and School Administration work” (TURMALINA, 2017, p. 42). In this way, we can see that the occupants of the pedagogical coordination position who work in daycare centers and preschools in Turmalina assume three concurrent attributions, with different specificities, evidencing the excess of roles assigned to such a professional⁶.

According to Municipal Complementary Law 2/2017, the tasks of pedagogical coordination in educational institutions in the Municipality, including those that work in daycare centers and preschools, are:

To carry out activities inherent to the profession of Pedagogue and/or equivalent, in particular in the following: carrying out studies, research, and surveys that provide subsidies for the formulation of policies, guidelines, plans, and actions for the implementation, maintenance, and operation of programs related to the teaching-learning activities; To enforce school laws and regulations; To participation in the elaboration of the Annual Education Plan; To carry out diagnoses and propose solutions to productivity and quality problems in schools; To coordinate the elaboration of the schools' teaching plans; To supervise and evaluate the methodology, methods and techniques and performance evaluation instruments used in the school; To elaborate school flow; To perform other attributions that, through a Law regulating their profession, are included in their competence. To ensure the conservation and maintenance of equipment and materials available; to comply with the administrative norms concerning the activities of the acting body; to perform other tasks related to their responsibility (TURMALINA, 2017, p. 42).

In the description of pedagogical coordination positions in the municipality of Turmalina, we see a field of work strongly guided by the results of standardized assessments and the achievement of goals. This is a factor that, in line with the national scenario, has caused changes in the working conditions of teachers and everyday school life, with the introduction of new forms of pedagogical management, which, more than focusing on student development or teaching processes, now focus on productivity, to achieve previously established levels of quality (BELLO; PENNA, 2017; FERNANDES; CAMPOS, 2015). However, as much as Early Childhood Education is also crossed by the transformations that take place in the Brazilian educational context, it cannot be disregarded that, “[...] due to its specificity, the impacts and responses to changes will probably be, marked by their specificity” (GALDINO; CÔCO, 2018, p. 291-292) since many of these new attributions imposed on school pedagogical organization have nothing to do with the coordination of collective pedagogical work in Early Childhood Education institutions.

Studies in Children's Education from 0 to 6 years old (ALVES, 2011; PEREIRA, 2015; SANTOS, 2015) have shown that coordination is a key element in the development of pedagogical work in Early Childhood Education institutions. The professionals who work with pedagogical coordination play a fundamental role in the process of collective construction of the group and the feeling of belonging to this collectivity by each teacher (SAITTA, 1998; SAVIO, 2017). Therefore, collective work implies the construction of a Political-Pedagogical Project (PPP), the elaboration and definition of educational objectives that do not come from spontaneous, individual, improvised, and uncoordinated choices. On the contrary, it presupposes a construction based on the interlocution between the various members of the group, to put into effect what was decided and planned together (SAITTA, 1998). Moreover, when discussing the role of school management in the reality of Italian Early Childhood Education, Savio (2017) considers that pedagogical coordination represents “[...] a precious and, above all, sustainable resource for permanent training in service of an educational team” (SAVIO, 2017, p. 146). Given this, we can highlight that, in the case of Turmalina, these attributions are not provided for by law and, therefore, do not contribute to the process of professional construction of the pedagogical coordination of Early Childhood Education since Complementary Municipal Law 2/2017 does not specify which are the coordinators' activities regarding the organization of collective pedagogical work in kindergartens and preschools. Another important issue concerns the lack of references in the coordination's responsibility, which, among other issues, has the premise of organizing and implementing the PPP and the Curriculum of the educational institution in which it operates. Nor were mentions related to conducting and articulating the collective pedagogical work, support, and teaching support regarding the children's development and learning process.

We emphasize that none of the analyzed legal provisions related the competencies of pedagogical coordination in Early Childhood Education institutions in Turmalina to pedagogical management, to the management of educational processes, even though this premise is the central point of coordination work (ALVES, 2011; SAITTA, 1998). Municipal Complementary Law 2/2017 and the regulations of these institutions say little or nothing about the sociopolitical and pedagogical specificities of the first stage of Basic Education, in which we highlight the indissociability between care and education; the centrality of children, their actions, interactions, and experiences in the organization of daily work; playing and other forms of interaction for children as the central axis of the curricula; the articulation and complementarity of the actions of the families. Therefore, we emphasize that the Municipality of Turmalina, following a national trend, lacks a “[...] public policy for Early Childhood Education that clarifies the purposes and guidelines for Early Childhood Education, the administrative and pedagogical organization, the profile and attributions of its professionals and the formation of the professional staff” (FERNANDES; CAMPOS, 2015, p. 153) - a factor that further enhances the imprecision of the attributions of the pedagogical coordinators of daycare centers and preschools (BRASIL, 2010).

This scenario shows that the process of professional constitution of the pedagogical coordinators of Turmalina has been built during a context of uncertainties and imprecision, caused both by the lack of definition of the nature of their legal attributions and by the lack of clarity about the specificities surrounding the organization of pedagogical processes in kindergartens and preschools. In this way, the professionals who join the coordination of Early Childhood Education institutions in this municipality are faced with a system of action whose regulation has multiple meanings that, alone, are not capable of producing a single orientation to establish professional competences; on the contrary, this regulation is reflected in multiple possibilities of action and diversified registers of action. In other words, the coordinators are faced with a dispersed scenario in which they are compelled to build their social experience by combining different logics of action (DUBET, 1996).

Thus, the interviews with the six coordinators allowed us to identify experiences, understood in the sense of their work, in the face of the situations they experience both in their insertion at work and in the organization of pedagogical work in daycare centers and preschools in Turmalina. According to Dubet (1996), social experience is the result of the actors' work on themselves, in which they act from the combination of different logics of action. In this author's perspective, the elements that make up the social experience do not belong to the actors but are offered (or imposed), sometimes through a set of norms, sometimes through social relations, and sometimes through tensions that derive from conflict situations. In the words of the author, “[...] the actor builds an experience that belongs to him, from logics of action that do not belong to him and that are given to him by the various dimensions of the system that are separated as the classic image of the functional unit of society breaks down” (DUBET, 1996, p. 140).

At first, we discussed with the interviewees the specificities of the work of pedagogical coordinators in daycare centers and preschools. We seek to understand, therefore, the possible approximations and distances between the work carried out by the coordinators in Early Childhood Education and that developed in other stages of Basic Education. We observed that of the six participants interviewed, only Luísa⁷ did not work as a pedagogical coordinator at other levels of education than Early Childhood Education. Thus, when asked if there are similarities between the actions that they develop in Early Childhood Education and the work of the pedagogical coordinators carried out at other levels of education, three participants answered yes and said:

Luísa - 05/18/2020: There is proximity between the works - the work of pedagogical supervision is very important, regardless of the level of education at which the supervisor works, since he is who guides the teacher in the development of the pedagogical process.

Geovana - 05/13/2020: There are similarities, but with different ways to reach the result.

Isabela - 05/15/2020: I realize that the activities developed at one level of education can be the same as those developed at another level, but the way of working, and the objective of work must be different.

Campos (2013) states that working with young children is complex and requires knowledge, dedication, creativity, and availability by those who carry it out, to always learn - a factor that integrates emotional, cognitive, physical, and social aspects. Working with children requires specific care and it is the role of the pedagogical coordinator to promote an environment in which the main objective of the group is to improve the quality of education through the appropriation of new and better ways of educating (PLACCO; SOUZA, 2010). Alice and Maria Clara, on the other hand, believe that there are no approximations between the work carried out by the pedagogical coordinators of Early Childhood Education and the work carried out at other levels of education. Both have similar views and highlight Alice - 05/19/2020: It has nothing to do with it. There's a lot of difference. The work of supervision from 6th to 9th grade [of Elementary School] is technical. The relationship with the family is no longer so close.

Maria Clara - 05/20/2020: I think Early Childhood Education is so different from other levels. In Early Childhood Education, we must be closer to the family, and to the teachers, we must get to know the child better. I think that at other levels, as this stage has passed, our role becomes more technical.

The different ways of organizing collective work in Early Childhood Education institutions, highlighted by Geovana and Isabela, are perhaps based on the position taken by Alice and Maria Clara, who address the differences that exist in the work of pedagogical coordination in other levels of education: a closer relationship between the pedagogical coordinator and the families, teachers and children, evidencing an integrative logic that refers to the internalization of knowledge and actions that are proper to pedagogical coordination in Early Childhood Education. For Dubet (1996), the logic of integration is guided by the construction of an integrating identity that presupposes the “us/them” differentiation. According to the author, in the integrative logic, the “us/them” relations are dialectically defined by social relations, while they define these relations. According to Dubet (1996, p. 116), in this perspective, “[...] the other is defined by his difference, by his strangeness”. For the author, such relations do not necessarily need to be hostile to be inscribed in an integrative logic, “[...] it is enough that they work in the recognition of a difference that maintains and strengthens the integrative identity. Very often, however, conflict reinforces individuals' sense of belonging and, therefore, their integration, their identity” (DUBET, 1996, p. 117). This is what ensures that coordinators identify with the assumptions of pedagogical work in Early Childhood Education. For them, recognizing themselves as a constitutive part of Early Childhood Education implies, above all, acting based on their specificities because, in the logic of integration, identity is seen as an element that promotes the coherence of the subject with his/her group.

In addition, it is necessary to consider that the technique, expressed in the speech of some coordinators, is understood by us as carrying out bureaucratic tasks that are not very close to the pedagogical attributions of the coordinators of Early Childhood Education in Turmalina. The pedagogical work in Early Childhood Education is structured based on other logics of action and, therefore, demands other technical notions of pedagogical work, such as i) closer contact with the children's families to complement the actions of both institutions regarding the full development of children; ii) understanding of play and the different modes of interaction of the child; iii) the centrality of children's social experiences as a key element in the curricula and pedagogical proposals of kindergartens and preschools; iv) indissociability between care and education in the organization of the daily life of Early Childhood Education institutions - elements that undoubtedly denote how technical the pedagogical work in daycare centers and preschools. Thus, for Alice and Maria Clara, the pedagogical work in Early Childhood Education is not less technical than in other fields of professional activity but rather governed by different principles, and in the case of Turmalina, are not always considered by the point of view of municipal legislation.

It is necessary to consider that, in the context of Basic Education, Early Childhood Education is distinguished from other levels of education, as it encompasses broader and more complex educational actions that are based, above all, on the integration between care and education in an action shared with the family - a factor that affects the quality of the educational process in daycare centers and preschools (BRUNO, ABREU, MONÇÃO, 2010). Therefore, the fact that Early Childhood Education, as its purpose is the full development of the child, based on the articulation of education and care practices in a complementary way to family education, questions and puts to the test traditional modes of management in educational institutions (BORGES; PANIDINI-SIMIANO, 2019, p. 545). Therefore, it is specific to the work of the pedagogical coordinators who work in Early Childhood Education to foster close relationships with families, mainly due to the specific conditions of children about their basic needs: well-being, affection, protection, and care.

We verified that the pedagogical coordinators build personal ways of evaluating the ends and means of daily activities since they subjectively build the care and education practices that, although not present in the official regulation of the Municipality, are necessary for the coordination of pedagogical work in Early Childhood Education, articulating sometimes strategic logics, logics marked by their subjectivities (DUBET, 1996). The participants were asked if there is anything specific to the work carried out by the pedagogical coordinators who work in daycare centers and preschools, to which they replied:

Maria Cristina - 05/14/2020: Early Childhood Education, being a different stage, has its peculiarities, such as closer observation, specific care, and a closer relationship with the family.

Maria Clara - 05/20/2020: The relationship with the family that needs to be stronger, and closer is specific to the pedagogical supervisor of Early Childhood Education. It is up to the pedagogical supervision to monitor the development of the children together with the teachers and the family.

Geovana - 05/13/2020: The work in Early Childhood Education is different since we work with children; requires greater care, and greater observation. We must be sensitive and careful about the observation and analysis of the various situations of everyday life.

Alice - 05/19/2020: The Early Childhood Education supervisor must be sensitive - welcome and cherish the child and take a closer look at the child’s care and education. We need to follow up closely with the teacher, advising on music, games, and playfulness.

Isabela - 05/15/2020: In Early Childhood Education, the family is more present, our contact must be stronger, and more effective - it is a joint effort.

Luísa - 05/18/2020: The work of the Early Childhood Education supervisor has a closer relationship with the family and the teacher. Seeking this partnership - family, and school - is the fundamental point for the success of work in Early Childhood Education. We do this mediation, seeking a pedagogical intervention. We, together, can detect aspects in the child that can affect him for the rest of his life.

Just as the coordinators claim to carry out work strategically aligned with the assumptions of Childhood Pedagogy (ROCHA, 2001), which take children and their development processes as the center of pedagogical action in daycare centers and preschools, they do so in a critical way, expressing the assumption of their subjectivities in the process of building as coordinators. In this regard, Dubet (1996, p. 152) states that “[...] the subject's critical activity unfolds neither in a social void nor in a cultural void and, even in the arcana of consciences, introspection is nothing more than an internalized social dialogue”. The author considers that criticism can be carried out in three possible ways: discovery (based on the revelation of unknown principles), invention (which implies breaking with social constraints), and experimentation (which presupposes testing, repetition, and verification). Thus, it is necessary to recognize that, distancing from what is prescribed by municipal legislation, the pedagogical coordinators understand that they need to advise teachers to approach the children's experiences, through sensitive approaches, in helping with the organization of times and spaces that enable the development and learning of boys and girls from interactions, games, sharing care and education of children with their families, as expressed in the participants' speeches.

This closer relationship that the pedagogical coordinator establishes with the family and teachers can be justified, given the specificities of Early Childhood Education, which is guided by the understanding that care is “something inseparable from the educational process” (BRASIL, 2010, p. 19). The participants pointed out important conditions for the pedagogical work of Early Childhood Education that differ from those carried out in the other stages of Basic Education: welcoming, observation, sensitivity, and attention to children. This care is directly related to the child's language, that is, their speeches, their expressions, and meanings produced in the daily life of collective environments. In the context of care and education, it is up to teachers, educators, pedagogical coordinators, and principals, among other professionals, to understand these identity conditions of Early Childhood Education that are essential to listening to the needs of children and the performance of their rights.

The indissociability between care and education is among the essential tasks for the performance of the pedagogical coordinator in the segment of Early Childhood Education. The pedagogical practice in Early Childhood Education aims, among other factors, at the integral formation of the child (BRUNO; ABREU; MONÇÃO, 2010). In this logic, we can infer that the coordinator who works in the contexts of care and education investigates specific situations around childhood and enables the teachers to articulate “[...] previous knowledge and practical experiences [of children] in the construction of new knowledge” (ROCHA, 2001, p. 28).

Dumont-Pena and Silva (2018) defend care as a manifestation of attention to the needs of the other, being a social practice that involves several aspects such as educational, health, and interpersonal, emphasizing its integration with educational practices. In this sense, the authors state that caring and educating express what is understood as roles of Early Childhood Education, which are, above all, children's rights. Thus, caring presupposes the organization of situations capable of promoting the development of the other - be it a child or adult, teacher, family, or pedagogical coordination.

In this sense, from the perspective of care, it is an attribute of pedagogical management, in the context of Early Childhood Education, to recognize that “[...] the pedagogical process must consider children in their entirety, observing their specificities, the differences between them and their form privileged to know the world through play”, as pointed out by the National Quality Parameters for Early Childhood Education (BRASIL, 2006, p. 17). In this perspective, Santos (2015, p. 46) states that the pedagogical coordinator should “[...] collectively help the faculty to expand the skills of listening and observing children, of documenting and recording projects, activities, and situations and to conduct investigations in the teaching practice”.

As provided in item II of Art. 7 of the DCNEI, “[...] the pedagogical proposal of Early Childhood Education institutions must ensure that they fully fulfill their socio-political and pedagogical role, assuming the responsibility of sharing and complementing the education and care of the children with their families” (BRASIL, 2010, p. 98). We emphasize that the internal regulations of daycare centers and preschools that were analyzed by us provide, among the attributions of pedagogical coordination, the integration of the institution of Early Childhood Education with families (TURMALINA, 2018), as already evidenced. In this sense, Bruno, Abreu, and Monção (2010) point out that, in the scope of management, care is revealed in the processes of continued formation of the team in search of the construction of a democratic and participatory management that guarantees a voice to all the subjects that make up the setting of the institution: children, professionals, and families. It is possible to infer, therefore, that the collective work developed in daycare centers and preschools is effective and qualified based on the democratic participation of these subjects in the institutional management process.

Therefore, the peculiarities of Early Childhood Education directly influence how the pedagogical coordinator can act, and the professional needs, from this, to articulate the dimensions of management to outline strategies in the face of the limitations and advances observed during the process of organizing the collective pedagogical work.

However, three interviewees highlighted that the pedagogical coordination of Early Childhood Education exercises one or more roles that are incompatible with the attributions that are pertinent to it:

Geovana - 05/13/2020: The supervisor, today, in Early Childhood Education has this role: to be an entertainer, who clowns around and promotes games at times for children; the introduction of contents with the classes. The pedagogical supervisor is seen as a figure of no importance, who is there to take care of everything in a school, a lost professional as if he didn't have a plan of action, who is there just to help the school's commemorative dates, the moments. The supervisor lacks a firm attitude toward facing and exposing his role.

Maria Clara - 05/20/2020: The pedagogical supervision of Early Childhood Education needs to have a different look, the teacher needs to start seeing the supervisor as their ally and not as an enemy; we want him to add knowledge, renew his knowledge, and improve himself. In the teacher's view, the supervisor should be at the school at the teacher's service, to do what he wants - cut a piece of paper, make a moment for the children, and give tutoring classes for the child with learning difficulties.

Maria Cristina - 05/14/2020: The pedagogical supervisors here at the school have always assumed these demands, to make moments... This is already part of our work. The principals and teachers already expect us to do this. A meeting was necessary with the school team (principals) about the role of supervisors in organizing and carrying out the moments, as I felt like an “event promoter”. Faced with so many assignments from the supervisor, I would not be able to do the school moments. [...]. I can help organize the moments but doing that is not my role.

Dubet (1996) considers that, in the logic of subjectivation, the subject - who is not reduced to reproducing the integrating principles arising from socialization, nor is he restricted to manipulating interests in competitive spaces - is capable of exercising criticism and, in this sense, Maria Cristina, Maria Clara, and Geovana do not shy away from carrying out a severe assessment of the attributions conferred on the coordinators which, deliberately, do not constitute actions of the pedagogical coordination. The criticism they carry out, in addition to being forceful, is deliberate, as it expresses the subjectivity they employ in their constitution as professionals, not aligning with the integrative visions that, although inadequate, are expressed in institutional regulation.

The investigation into how pedagogical coordinators constitute themselves as professionals demands an analytical exercise that consists of “rising from experience to the system” (DUBET, 1996, p. 112), that is, undertaking an interpretative exercise capable of identifying the different orientation logics normative of the conducts present in the social system through how the actors articulate and synthesize them both in terms of individual action and terms of collective action. Given this, we emphasize that the interviewees (Maria Cristina, Maria Clara, and Geovana) work in preschools in the municipality of Turmalina and, therefore, we seek to verify whether such roles are regulated in the Internal Regulations of these institutions. In this document, in its article 52, the following competences of specialists in preschool education that are related to the attributions mentioned by the participants are listed: “l) Carrying out teaching support activities; m) Promoting “Living and Learning” moments, civic moments and others; III) Providing guidance to students, articulating family involvement in the educational process” (TURMALINA, 2018, p. 31-32).

What is contained in the Internal Rules regarding the complaints of the interviewees is imprecisely regulated since it does not specify the activities to be developed by the pedagogical coordinators of the preschools, which leads to ambiguities in the performance of their roles. This gives the pedagogical coordination a professional image that is out of character and, consequently, meaningless. In addition, we verified a total mismatch between the internal regulations and the founding conceptions of the Early Childhood Education policy in our country, which, among other issues, recognizes the child as the center of the pedagogical process and not future students. We can also see, according to the statements of the interviewees, the lack of understanding by the teaching staff and the principles of the institution of the attributions due to the pedagogical coordinators. In this way, the imprecision of the roles of the pedagogical coordinators who work in the preschool appears in daily life, in the collective actions between the subjects - principals, coordinators, and teachers.

We can infer, according to Maria Cristina's report, that the performance of the “moments” was already an activity considered proper to the pedagogical coordination of the preschool, which, over the years, became part of its attributions; in this way, the mischaracterization of roles was generated from collective actions in the preschool routine. For Dubet (1996 apud SILVA, 2008, p. 47), in the logic of subjectivation, the identity of the subject “[...] (the one who wants to build his life) is always a tension between the integrative action and the strategy - a tension with the world in which the subject is always a bad subject, he says, using Touraine's expression”.

How these professionals are inserted in the institutional context can favor the delimitation of the attributions that, among other aspects, constitute the professionality of the pedagogical coordinators. We emphasize that the three participants refer to the performance of the “moments” in a pejorative way - not understanding such situations as a role pertinent to the pedagogical coordination of kindergartens and preschools. The “Live and Learn” moments, civic moments, and others (provided for in the preschool's internal regulations) are institutional events that should be promoted by the pedagogical coordinator, as already highlighted in this study. Attributions such as “moments”, in the context investigated, are passed on to the pedagogical coordinators of Early Childhood Education without a broader debate on the sociopolitical and pedagogical role of daycare centers and preschools in the context of Basic Education. This results from the historical constitution of pedagogical coordination within the Brazilian public school since the attributions of this professional occupation were constituted from a non-linear path and late recognition in Brazilian public policies, which affected the constitution of its professional identity (FERNANDES, 2010). Therefore, in the preschool environment, there was a redefinition of professional values and vision regarding the attributions of the pedagogical coordinator, which were not necessarily initially debated, reflected, and given meaning by those professionals.

In the meantime, we highlight a fragment of Geovana’s speech: “The supervisor lacks a firm attitude of facing and exposing his role” - an expression that celebrates the use of subjectivity in the process of producing meanings about the daily work of the pedagogical coordinators of Early Childhood Education. Geovana seeks a solution given the devaluation of the pedagogical coordinator in the context of Early Childhood Education in Turmalina. In this sense, we consider that the exercise of criticism, carried out by these coordinators, should be considered to define the training and role of the professional work carried out by them. For Dubet (1996), the exercise of criticism is configured as a form of orientation of social action in which the actor, through his critical capacity, constitutes a subject, which occurs through the distancing movement he takes about integration and competition. Contributing to this reflection, Santomé (1997) considers that the exercise of criticism should be considered to define the formation and role of professional work. The exercise of criticism, for this author, is configured through democratic practices and, in this way, “[...] it is possible that it is easier to detect and deal with situations of injustice and domination that social collectives with less power” (SANTOMÉ, 1997, p. 7), which justifies the concealment and marginalization of voices and oppressed social groups. Thus, Geovana's speech presupposes a self-criticism built during a collective context of professional devaluation - which also makes us reflect on what are the possible obstacles that make it impossible for the pedagogical coordinator to face and expose her role. In this specific case, could such a professional not re-signify such “moments” towards a collective, democratic, and dynamic work of cultural enrichment? What prevents this from happening?

Another observation made regarding the activities highlighted by the three participants concerns the conservative and school content in which these activities are placed, which goes against the norms that regulate the organization of Early Childhood Education, as well as the perspectives of Childhood Pedagogy. The introduction of contents, the organization of civic moments, and reinforcement classes are activities with mechanistic and preparatory biases, contradicting the guiding conceptions of the Early Childhood Education policy that prioritize the social experiences of children in collective spaces, based on caring and educating, with playing and other forms of interaction between the child and the world as the central axis of the pedagogical action (BRASIL, 2010).

In addition, the criticism made by the coordinators is also a self-criticism. We could hear from Maria Clara: “The pedagogical supervision of Early Childhood Education needs to have a different look, the teacher needs to start seeing the supervisor as their ally and not as an enemy; we want him to add knowledge, renew his knowledge, improve himself”. For this to occur, a movement by the coordinators is necessary to renounce “[...] the exercise of a position of power, of directive [and prescriptive] leadership, controlling, sanctioning” (SAVIO, 2017, p. 144) which can be assumed defensively given the complexity of the coordination role. It demands, therefore, a process of partnership, of coordination in facing the uncertainties and difficulties imposed by the complexity of the practices of care and education of babies and young children in public spaces.

Although conforming to the field of action of a specific social actor, pedagogical coordination in Early Childhood Education brings together different meanings that converge to build collective spaces and times that directly affect their professional attributions. As each educational context has its specificities, working with the teachers, and identifying the real needs of the Early Childhood Education institution, these professionals build the social experience as pedagogical coordinators of kindergartens and preschools.

FINAL CONSIDERATIONS

The professional constitution process of the pedagogical coordinators is a product of the daily and collective constructions of their social experiences - about themselves, as Dubet (1996) emphasizes. Therefore, the professionality of the pedagogical coordinators is also constituted by their insertion and socialization in the institutional context. As seen, even in the face of a political scenario of invisibility, imprecision, and professional devaluation, the pedagogical coordinators of Early Childhood Education, as evidenced by the interviewees, seek through different logics of action to meet the pedagogical precepts that envisage, among other aspects, the indissociability between care and education practices, especially about the relationship with families and the sensitivity and attention given to children in their various interactions.

The attributions of the pedagogical coordination of Early Childhood Education are revealed in the care and education that they provide, not only to the children but also to the teachers and families, welcoming them, listening to them, guiding them, and enabling them to develop through multiple knowledge, arising from the context of reflections and interactions that emerge from collective work. The communion of this knowledge seeks to overcome welfare or school approaches, concepts, and practices, as well as highlight the socio-political and pedagogical specificities of care and education spaces, which actively contributes to the process of building the identity of Early Childhood Education. In summary, the pedagogical coordination articulates the polyphony of voices of the different subjects present in the context of daycare centers and preschools (children, their families, and professionals, legislation, as well as the regulation of the broader social system), the diverse knowledge and different actions that structure the pedagogical work in Early Childhood Education daily.

Thus, the emergence of new/other meanings related to the organization of the collective work of daycare centers and preschools needs to consider the sociopolitical and pedagogical specificities of Early Childhood Education to value the professional skills of the pedagogical coordinators who work in these spaces and who emerge from their actions. Such meanings are governed much more by the social experience of the coordinators - and which arise from the pedagogical work - than by institutional regulation. This assertion starts from the recognition of a specific and, at the same time, complex work, which exposes the conditions and peculiarities of this craft and allows us, from this, to reflect, individually and collectively, on the possibilities of improving the collective pedagogical work in Early Childhood Education.

Finally, we emphasize the importance of expanding studies, dialogues, and research that deal with the professionalism of the pedagogical coordinator of Early Childhood Education to problematize, reflect, and highlight the place, the specificities of this subject - who conducts the dynamics of interactions collective actions in care and education contexts.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The authors thank Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico - CNPq for the research productivity scholarship and financial support.

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• 1
  The translation of this article into English was funded by Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico - CNPq/Brasil.
• 2
  This is the dissertation entitled Pedagogical Coordination in the Organization of the Curriculum of Early Childhood Education in Turmalina, Minas Gerais: What figure is this? (A coordenação pedagógica na organização do currículo da Educação Infantil de Turmalina, Minas Gerais: que figura é essa?), by Fabiana Pinheiro Barroso made in 2021 in the Graduate Program in Education at the Federal University of Jequitinhonha and Mucuri Valleys (UFVJM), with the advisor Dr. Sandro Vinicius Sales dos Santos.
• 3
  Dubet (1996) is concerned with understanding the ways in which individuals guide their actions in post-modern societies. industrialists, refuting the idea of a strong and united society that exerts coercion on individuals. In this perspective, the individuals are understood as actors who, when seeking meanings for their actions, build a social experience and, therefore, are no longer understood as passive subjects in socialization processes.
• 4
  Although he refutes this basic idea of classical sociology - that society is superior to individuals -, Dubet (1996) claims not to completely abandon the ambitions of this sociology which, according to him, is strongly identified with the theory of David Emile Durkheim, Talcott Parsons, and Norbert Elias.
• 5
  For the author, conflict is the element that feeds back the feeling of belonging of individuals to a certain group, helping in the production of identity - an essential factor for the construction of social experience, whether in articulation with what is instituted or in confrontation with the regulation that allows the emergence of the instituting (DUBET, 1996).
• 6
  The minimum education required to act as an education specialist provided for by the municipal legislation is the course degree in Pedagogy or another degree, with Post-Graduation in School Supervision. There is, therefore, incompatibility between the job description and the respective minimum education requirement.
• 7
  For ethical reasons, the coordinators' names were replaced by fictitious names. This action was performed complying with the criteria of confidentiality and anonymity provided for by the guidelines of the Research Ethics Committee of the UFVJM.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  17 Nov 2023
• Date of issue
  2023

History

• Received
  20 May 2022
• Accepted
  28 Nov 2022

• This document has a preprint version
  10.1590/SciELOPreprints.4061