Training proposal for professionals of early childhood education: validated contributions of occupational therapy by Delphi technique

Abstract

Currently, important gaps are identified in occupational therapy research that focus on the different concepts and objectives of Brazilian early childhood education. The objective of this research was to present the validation process of training workshops aimed at workers in early childhood education, through the consensus of specialists. Seven participatively elaborated workshops gave rise to the training framework and such information was presented in detail to the specialists in two rounds, according to the Delphi technique. Twenty-nine doctoral experts in early childhood education were invited, six of whom agreed to participate, with degrees in philosophy and literature, pedagogy and occupational therapy. A descriptive analysis of the responses was performed, based on the average of the results found. The workshops reached 95%-100% agreement. Some thematic enrichments were suggested, such as: school and preschool routine; neoliberalism and early childhood education; childhoods and their multiple determinations; the spontaneity of playing in early childhood education; children's culture and curriculum. The specialists also suggested dynamics and bibliographies for the workshops. Consensus denotes multidisciplinary theoretical-methodological consistency, which increases the complexity of the approach and the chances of generalization beyond the local interests of the institution that hosted this experience. The chart contains key themes, focused on current issues in early childhood education, which makes it possible for occupational therapists to use it in other contexts.

Keywords:
Education, Child; Education, Continuing; Occupational Therapy; Methodology

Resumo

Atualmente, identificam-se importantes lacunas nas pesquisas em terapia ocupacional que enfoquem as diversas concepções e objetivos da educação infantil brasileira. O objetivo desta pesquisa foi apresentar o processo de validação de oficinas formativas voltadas para trabalhadoras da educação infantil, por meio do consenso de especialistas. Sete oficinas elaboradas participativamente deram origem ao quadro formativo e tais informações foram apresentadas detalhadamente aos especialistas em duas rodadas, conforme a técnica Delphi. Foram convidados 29 doutores experts em educação infantil, sendo que seis deles aceitaram participar, com formação em filosofia e letras, pedagogia e terapia ocupacional. Foi feita análise descritiva das respostas, a partir da média dos resultados encontrados. As oficinas alcançaram a 95%-100% de concordância. Foram sugeridos alguns enriquecimentos temáticos, como: o cotidiano escolar e pré-escolar; neoliberalismo e educação infantil; infâncias e suas múltiplas determinações; o espontaneísmo do brincar na educação infantil; cultura infantil e currículo. Os especialistas também sugeriram dinâmicas e bibliografias para as oficinas. O consenso denota consistência teórico-metodológica multidisciplinar, o que aumenta a complexidade da abordagem e as chances de generalização para além dos interesses locais da instituição que sediou esta experiência. O quadro contém temas-chave, focados nas problemáticas atuais da educação infantil, o que o torna passível de utilização por terapeutas ocupacionais em outros contextos.

Palavras-chave:
Educação Infantil; Educação Continuada; Terapia Ocupacional; Metodologia

Introduction

In the first decades of the Republic, Early Childhood Education (ECE) had a non-school, tutelary nature, focusing on a moral and submissive education (Kuhlmann Junior, 2016; Stemmer, 2012). The idea was to “save” poor children, removing them from places considered inappropriate, such as streets and other public spaces, also compensating for the negative influence of families considered “dysfunctional”. Some experts claim that there was some educational proposal in these institutions (Kuhlmann Junior, 2016; Stemmer, 2012), however, in general, the quality of service was low, since the focus was on corrective and disciplinary education (Kuhlmann Junior, 2016). Only with the second version of the Law of Guidelines and Bases of National Education (LDB 9394/1996), Early Childhood Education was recognized as the first stage of Basic Education and, from then on, institutions had to submit to the norms and supervision competent authorities (Saviani, 2012a).

However, even with the insertion of ECE in Basic Education, the LDB did not specify its role, giving rise to the debate about its objective and identity. Stemmer (2012) states that the different ways of naming care for children and this educational stage, including among international organizations, reflect differences in conception and objectives. Sometimes it has been understood from a care perspective, sometimes as a moment of preparation for Elementary School (Pasqualini & Martins, 2008).

For Children's Pedagogy, historically, day care centers would have an assistance character, concerned with food, hygiene and safety of children, while preschools would have an educational focus, aiming at child development. Linking care and education was an integrative solution to the limitations of daycare and preschool in the Brazilian context (Pasqualini & Martins, 2008). Since then, the care-education binomial has been present in official documents made available by the Ministry of Education, albeit vaguely, making it possible to perceive a certain devaluation of care (Pasqualini & Martins, 2008). In this debate, some argue that thinking about the specificity of ECE through care would lead to the belief that, in other educational stages, it does not exist. Others question whether it would be possible to extrapolate the meanings of satisfying the basic needs of children, considering care an educational objective (Pasqualini & Martins, 2008).

Another very widespread conception in Brazil is that of anti-school Early Childhood Education. Students, teaching, teacher, among other terms, would be elements related to the school routine that, according to the defenders of this perspective, should not be present in ECE (Pasqualini & Martins, 2008). It is argued that the educational-pedagogical relationships in ECE are broader than the teaching-learning process that privileges the cognitive aspect. Thus, the cognition-affect dichotomy and the centrality of the former in the teaching-learning process are questioned.

Saviani (2012b), when criticizing the anti-school approach, states that the difference between Early Childhood Education and Elementary Education is not playing versus studying, the spontaneous versus the systematized, but the pedagogical mediation that must be done. There is a systematization in the daily life of young children, in games with rules, in logical reasoning, in the routine of activities, among others, as well as creativity, imagination and inventiveness so necessary for the apprehension of scientific concepts unfolded in Elementary School. With this, the author argues that, in order to overcome the idea of ​​an assistance ECE, it is necessary to overcome the resistance of considering it as a school. Furthermore, Pasqualini & Martins (2008) point out that, by denying the school character, the educational process of children becomes a mere monitoring of their development. There would be, at this point, the risk of education being reduced to the spontaneity of practices and the emptying of the educator's role. The latter would contribute to the precariousness of their training, since it is understood that the work of these professionals would be limited to following children in the course of development (Pasqualini & Martins, 2008).

As for the issue of educational policies aimed at ECE and pedagogical training, it is necessary to talk about neoliberalism that weakens public policies, proposing that the State limit itself to offering compensatory actions to contain poverty, a reality that is reflected in the curricula and in teacher training (Arce, 2001). For Hill-Collins & Bilge (2021, p. 216), the neoliberal logic suggests that the school's mission is not centered on the search for social justice, but on the search for “[...] economically viable ways of providing instruction and skills in a non-discriminatory manner”. Even when talking about inclusion and diversity, Brazilian education lacks the means to deal critically and intersect with differences in class, race, gender, ethnicity and ability, so that it does not fall into the assimilationism of apparently failed children to social hierarchies. That is, educating children for “success”, naturalizing the logic of scarcity, competition and individual solutions, is a path that only corroborates the oppressive reality.

By way of illustration, according to the Scenarios of School Exclusion survey in Brazil, carried out by UNICEF, of Brazilian children and adolescents of school age (4 to 17 years old) who are out of school, 34.95% are children from kindergarten (4 to 5-years-old). When crossing race/color, the numbers are discrepant, in which blacks and browns added together result in 64.4% of children in this age group being excluded from school. When looking at the per capita family income of children of the same age who are out of school, it is not surprising to find that those living on up to one minimum wage make up 86.4% (Fundo das Nações Unidas para a Infância, 2021).

Considering these political and theoretical aspects, an important scientific gap is currently identified in research and interventions in occupational therapy in Early Childhood Education, especially studies that go beyond issues related to Special Education (Almeida, 2022; Pereira et al., 2021). However, important research has been taking the school routine as an object, shifting the analytical focus from the individual to the school, in order to think about the possibilities and problems, and to contribute to the strengthening of Brazilian public education (Sant’Anna, 2016; Pan & Lopes, 2020). The alliance between occupational therapy and the field of education has historical roots in schools and special classes, aimed at people with disabilities, segregated from the regular education network. As a result, action in the school context was structured through actions aimed at the atypical child, using therapeutic procedures, organized by clinical or psychopedagogical diagnoses (Bartalotti & De Carlo, 2001; Rocha, 2018). Since then, the literature has described actions aimed at children with disabilities and their inclusion in school, using collaborative consulting, assistive technology, accessibility and play and recreational activities as working tools, based on a primarily developmental logic (Coppede et al., 2014; Pereira et al., 2021; Sant’Anna, 2016; Silva & Silva, 2020).

Focusing on the contributions of occupational therapy in Early Childhood Education, the objectives of this article are: i) to describe the critical formative process developed participatively with the workers of a Municipal School of Early Childhood Education (EMEI), product of extensionist practices; ii) report methodological adaptations, systematizing and validating the training framework through the Delphi technique.

Methodology

The training proposal presented in this article composed the extension actions of the Laboratory of Territorial and Emancipatory Practices (LAPET), of the Occupational Therapy course at the Federal University of Pelotas, during the first half of 2019. It arose from the demands brought by the workers of a Municipal School of Early Childhood Education (EMEI), located in a vulnerable territory in the municipality of Pelotas/RS, known for its high rates of violence, problems with basic sanitation, transportation, housing, which result in precarious living conditions.

The Emancipatory Workshop was the intervention and research method, as it carries the potential to create a space for debates based on the experiences of the participants, providing cycles of reflection for the transformation of daily work (Soares et al., 2018). There were seven meetings, with an average duration of two hours, in which 3 teachers, the director and the pedagogical coordinator of EMEI participated. The themes discussed were not previously articulated, since they were defined according to the development of the process.

At the end of the training cycle, we structured a panel with the themes and resources used, in order to present them to the specialists. At this stage of the research, the Delphi technique served to validate the procedures adopted through consensus among specialists. The Delphi technique does not impose a specific number of specialists, but values ​​qualification, seeking the smallest number of specialists necessary to build a representative group (Castro & Rezende, 2009; Hsu & Sandford, 2007; Scarparo et al., 2012). The selection of specialists was made for convenience, prioritizing doctors with notable experience in the educational field, according to the analysis of Lattes curricula.

Twenty-nine specialists in Early Childhood Education and/or in continuing education of educational professionals were invited, with productions based on critical epistemologies, to whom instructions on the research, the Term of Free and Informed Consent, in addition to the form of evaluation and methodological framework to be evaluated.

The form had the evaluation criteria using the Likert scale, scoring from 1 to 5, with 1 being slightly relevant/applicable and 5 being very relevant/applicable. In addition to the score, the form had a space for suggestions and comments, so that the suggestions presented were part of the methodological framework. A descriptive analysis was performed, based on the average of the results, and items in which at least 70% of the specialists scored 4 (some relevance/applicability) or 5 (very relevant/applicable) were adopted as a positive consensus (Williams & Carnahan, 2013). The consensus is arbitrary and, according to the literature, it can vary from 50% to 80% (Castro & Rezende, 2009; Hsu & Sandford, 2007; Keeney et al., 2001). There were two rounds of evaluations interspersed with feedback.

In the first round, 6 experts agreed to participate: 3 occupational therapists, 2 pedagogues, 1 graduated in Philosophy and Modern Languages. In the second round, only 4 specialists participated: 2 occupational therapists, 1 pedagogue and 1 professor of philosophy and modern languages. The age of the specialists ranged from 34 to 80 years, and the time of work or study in the area from 8 to 54 years, with an average of 23 years of work. All specialists had a doctor's degree and worked as professors in federal or state higher education institutions. To preserve the participants' identity, they will be identified by the letter E, for specialist, a number from 1 to 6, followed by the professional area.

This study was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the Faculty of Medicine of the Federal University of Pelotas (CAAE 33845820.5.0000.5317) and all participants signed the Informed Consent Form.

Result

The emancipatory workshops

In addition to education in the school form marked by simultaneous, homogeneous activities and comparative performance evaluations (Vincent et al., 2001), we understand Education as every form of cultural appropriation, that is, a humanizing process resulting from the proactive increase of action on the reality, mediated by people and the material and symbolic elements available (Leontiev, 1978; Almeida, 2022). Thus, in this project, the notion of emancipation is used as an adjective for the workshops and Education, as it simultaneously qualifies the struggle for the broad socialization of knowledge historically accumulated by humanity (Saviani & Duarte, 2012) and affirms the purpose of Education as praxis committed to overcoming the matrices of capitalist, sexist and racist domination (Almeida et al., 2019). This process recognizes the revolutionary limits of the school institution and education, however, the investment takes place in the contradiction of the system itself, incited by counter-hegemonic thinking, by the exercise of abstraction proper to materialist dialectical thinking, by the transversality in human relations when thinking the common.

The understanding of the needs occurred at all times, however, in the first workshop, a round of conversation was proposed in order to get to know the participants and hear their expectations regarding the training. We made a distinction between demand and need. According to Lukács (2018), need is the founding moment of the activity of consciousness, which requires an adequate level of knowledge of the world to be transformed. The criterion of adequacy is given by the nature of what one wants to transform and by the purpose, by teleology. The teachers brought demands, such as: frustrations regarding the educational process at school; the lack of attention, indiscipline and the “surfaced sexuality of children”; tiredness and dissatisfaction with school; negative influence from parents and caregivers; and, finally, the lack of pedagogical meetings. All these legitimate demands that, in some way, needed to be historicized so that it would be possible to perceive the determinations of the real, or rather, the needs.

The second workshop focused on the childhood category and its various conceptions. The students responsible for the workshop introduced the theme from the historical-cultural perspective of childhood (Ariès, 1978; Freitas, 2016). Then, it was suggested that the teachers express their conceptions of childhood in the form of a drawing to encourage debate along with the exposition of the theme. The drawings portrayed an idealized childhood, with freedom and security when playing in the street and with the certainty of having a cozy home. In order to problematize this understanding, the documentary The invention of childhood (Sulzbach, 2000), which brings children from different social classes and ways of experiencing childhood, was shown. It was evaluated that the meeting brought about important debates, and the teachers reflected that being a child is not necessarily describing childhood by a specific class cut (middle class), admitting the existence of different childhoods.

The third workshop sought to question the role of education and public schools in the lives of children who attend them. As a strategy, an educational game inspired by previous experiences with young people was performed (Yonekura & Soares, 2010). The game proposed that the participants position themselves in favor or against an evaluative expression or phrase and defend it, being able to even remake their opinions based on the established debate. In this workshop, caring and educating were shown to be inseparable pillars in ECE, returning to the more general concept of education as appropriation of culture (Saviani & Duarte, 2012).

In the fourth workshop, the theme function of the school triggered reflections on access to school as a right and the unveiling of the role of the State, with the aim of reflecting on school practices. In this workshop, the understanding of the school as an institution that reproduces inequalities was deepened. Bourdieu (2015) understands that the school is hidden in the myth of neutrality, ignoring the socioeconomic differences of students, thus, allowing the school mechanisms of exclusion to continue to act covertly against children from the popular class. In addition, it was possible to problematize the very present idea that the school would have the mission of protecting its students from bad family and territorial influence, in the sense of civilizing them or compensating for cultural deficits (Freitas, 2005, 2016). Teachers' working conditions were also discussed; several difficulties in relation to the service, such as the devaluation of this worker, his low wages, in addition to the problems between the team and the management of that particular school.

In the fifth meeting, we brought to the debate the determinants of pedagogical practices and school routine based on the joint reading of “Buy the neoliberal kit for early childhood education and get the ten steps to becoming a reflective teacher for free” (Arce, 2001). We reflect on the influence of neoliberalism on teacher training policies and the view of the teacher as a technical reproducer of content, whose gaze is rooted in the logic of productivity, without theorizing or encouraging criticality. The teachers mentioned that the reflective subject can become a problem when questioning the social and institutional reality. Despite this, they recognize in children, from a very early age, an interest in reflecting on the world and its stories. In addition, they quickly translated the neoliberal recipe applied to everyday school life, exemplifying the lack of funds and the lack of adequate instruments for educational practice.

In the sixth workshop, there was a conversation circle to evaluate the process. The participants rescued the previous meetings, with the intention of grouping them into thematic categories. Such systematization favored the synthesis of collaborative learning. On that specific day, the group had the school's pedagogical coordinator. Themes considered difficult to approach by the teachers, such as childhood sexuality and the allusion to firearms during children's games were resumed, highlighting the boundaries between the territory and the school.

In the seventh and last workshop, we used an individual assessment instrument that contained 8 questions about the meetings. The responses were given on a 3-point Likert scale, relating to the methods and strategies used, relevance and applicability of the discussion in everyday life, their participation, among others, in addition to including a space for comments and suggestions. Table 1 summarizes all the themes, objectives and strategies of the workshops, presented to the specialists for evaluation.

Table 1
Themes, objectives and strategies of the methodological framework I.

	Theme	Objective	Strategy
W.1	Presentation	Capturing the demands/training needs of the participants	Round of conversation
W.2	Historical construction of the childhood category and its idealization	Discuss the idealization of childhood and multiple childhoods based on social classes	Cartoons about childhood and documentary “The invention of childhood” (Sulzbach, 2000)
W.3	School role	Identify the role of public school and education	Game with trigger phrases (Yonekura & Soares, 2010)
W.4	School as a right and unveiling the role of the State	Reflect on school practices	Group discussion based on reflections on the demands brought
W.5	Determinants of pedagogical practice and school routine	Recognize and analyze the determinants that cross the pedagogical practices in that	Round of conversation and joint reading of “Buy the neoliberal kit for early childhood education and get the ten steps to becoming a reflective teacher for free” (Arce, 2001)
W.6	Daily life and school practice	Territory	Group discussion to build topics of the themes raised
W.7	Evaluation and Closure	Debate on the topics addressed and identify what still needs to be deepened	Evaluation form with Likert scale

Validation of the training framework according to the Delphi technique

In the first round, a consensus of more than 70% was obtained in each of the workshops, evaluated as 4 (some relevance/applicability) or 5 (very relevant/applicable). The lowest agreement was 80% in workshop 2, as shown in the figure below (Figure 1). As at least two rounds were planned, suggested changes were made and sent to the specialists in order to refine the framework, reaching even greater consensus. In the second round, the number of experts was reduced to 4, however, there was 95% to 100% agreement.

Figure 1
Percentage of experts’ consensus.

In workshop 1, experts pointed out the need to create a dynamic so that those involved could get to know each other, favoring the exchange of reflections. It was suggested to change the round of conversation strategy to a semantic chain, in order to stimulate an initial approximation with the participants, in addition to apprehending elements that would be useful for the creation of the vignettes used in workshop 4. The semantic chain would happen in two moments: in the first, the participants were asked to emit words and phrases representing the school routine and, later, they illustrated with real situations of the school routine.

In workshop 2, the feedback emphasized the importance of the theme Historical construction of the childhood category and its idealization, reaffirming the influence of public policies on everyday practices, with emphasis on the dissent on the conceptions of childhood and children. An Education specialist also highlighted the need to include the debate on caring-educating and the anti-school ECE present in official MEC documents and in the participants' speeches. This issue, widely debated in the educational field, questions whether the role of educators would be to accompany the spontaneity of children's activities, or even to meet hygiene, food and safety needs, attributions that would think against the technical-pedagogical repertoire and consequent precariousness of the educator's role (Jardim, 2003; Pasqualini & Martins, 2008). We believe that occupational therapy makes an important contribution to this topic by addressing the meanings of playing in EI and the possibilities of mediation work, especially if we are capable of breaking with the adult-centric and stage-based view of human development (Almeida, 2022).

Therefore, actions in favor of a healthy psychomotor and cognitive development cannot be confused with the desire to produce functional future adolescents/adults, subordinated to institutional and social demands (consumption and productivity), causing the erasure of children's culture (Almeida, 2022). In the words of Vicentin (2020, s.p.), we need to create territories for children, understanding that “[...] the child has a fragility that is precisely at the service of building worlds, of the power of being”. It is about politicizing childhood. In this way, both caring and playing can be resized by the principles of participation and protection, terms that are opposed to guardianship (Vicentin, 2020). What would be the child's participation in the curriculum? How does the relationship of forces between children's and adult culture take place? What is produced from experience in playing? How to act in the mediation of children's activities in ECE? In summary, it is necessary to think and act based on the principle that the child is a producer of culture and experience.

The mediation of adults, be they educators, caregivers or occupational therapists, is of fundamental importance, especially if adults seek to enhance, qualify and expand the expressions and socializing manifestations peculiar to children's groups. Adult-child types of socialization are not always control and discipline. The reality is much more complex, contradictory and disputed. Between adults-children, children-children and children-adults, manifestations of conflict, transgression, obedience, reciprocity, cooperation, alternation of power, etc. “And, still under the weight of traditional and functionalist curricular impositions, through subversions to the instituted order, children bring their peculiar way of seeing and constructing reality, therefore, they create and negotiate forms of participation” (Almeida, 2022, p. 967).

Thinking about the fields of experiences present in the National Common Curricular Base, how to mediate the children's experience in educational spaces is the key question. According to Walter Benjamin (1984), experience is born from everyday life and precedes what has already been codified, instituted. It is the genesis of history. Thus, a critical education, based on experience, should de-infantize childhood and play, that is, consider its relative autonomy in terms of symbols and social practices (Benjamin, 1984).

Even though this article does not focus on Special Education, we can mention an interesting research carried out by the occupational therapist Sant’Anna (2016), in which she presents a proposal for Continuing In-Service Training for Early Childhood Education teachers. The author talks about strategies that facilitated participation and learning in the games proposed in the teacher's pedagogical planning, with an emphasis on guaranteeing a playful space for the target audience of Special Education. The mediation of play, referenced by Francine Ferland's Playful Model, was worked on as a possibility of interaction, pleasure, curiosity, sense of humor and spontaneity, a conception that breaks with the utilitarianism present in some theories, since no specific result is aspired beyond the play itself. As a result, we can propose some reflections aiming at theoretical and practical advances in occupational therapy: how to theorize playing, not restricting the ludic experience to subjectivist aspects? How to theorize the place of conflict and inadaptation in educational spaces beyond punishment, pathologization and normalization of behavior, stressing the very meaning of education, roles and instituted habits?

Thinking about the doctrine of full protection, we argue that it is necessary to reaffirm the child as a subject of rights, co-builder of school, territorial and social dynamics. The childhood experience occurs in the paradox of socialization and freedom, emphasizing that in modern times disciplinary mechanisms multiply that limit the childhood experience to age expectations, performances, punishing, criminalizing or medicalizing ways of life that do not respond to the expectations of creating useful citizens and adjusted to the current social and economic order (Vicentin, 2020, s/p.)

The drawing strategy used in workshop 2, which consisted of proposing that the teachers represent childhoods through an analysis of social class, was evaluated as insufficient. One of the experts stated:

An idealization of childhoods within the framework of “social classes” may end up bringing very stereotyped images of childhood and children, since different post-structuralist/multicultural perspectives have already deconstructed the watertight ways of thinking about cultural production. I believe that a cut by eras/contexts is more appropriate and collaborates more with the objective proposed in this workshop (E4, Pedagogy).

We agree that children are constituted based on perceptible experiences by class, race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, ability, among other social markers (Gomes, 2019). Looking at how these dimensions are interconnected in the organization of children's experiences is essential to avoid possible stereotyped representations. Nilma Gomes (2019) states that some differences imply traumatic experiences, and educational and school institutions can contribute to this situation. Hence the importance of intersectional discussion of the racial specificity of children and the understanding of racism in ECE, which happens both in relationships between peers and also with teachers, in the way of dealing with the family, etc. The articulation of race, class and gender as principles of an emancipatory Early Childhood Education means recognizing diversity and fighting for justice and collective and individual social rights. Such contents urgently need to support Early Childhood Education, as well as the training of professionals (Gomes, 2019; Hill-Collins & Bilge, 2021).

Originally, workshop 3 addressed the role of education and the public school. Specialists suggested that the specificities and role of Early Childhood Education be considered. With that, we adhered to the suggestions for new references for this workshop, adding two chapters from the book Infância e Educação Infantil: uma abordagem histórica, by Kuhlmann Junior (2016). Regarding the strategy of trigger phrases, we provide examples of some that were used during the extension, such as: “Playing at school is as important as 'passing on' content, since from 0 to 10 years old, playing is the best way of learning for children ”; “The main function of the school is to transmit knowledge, from the educator to the student”; and “The Early Childhood Education school has the main objective of educating, with care being a secondary task”; experts warned that some claims already have legal guidance. Thus, in the final table, we proposed that the trigger phrases be removed from the workshop support material, allowing the deepening of the discussions, based on the available texts. In addition, specialist 4 (Pedagogy) noted that the videos by pedagogue Vitor Paro (YouTube, 2023a, 2023b, 2023c) about school and education, which were made available as support material, did not specifically address Early Childhood Education.

The suggested videos deal with educational management as a whole. In this sense, they do not directly address Early Childhood Education, which, although part of Basic Education, requires a specific approach to teaching activities and children's needs (E4, Pedagogy).

Thus, the book by Monção (2021) on management in Early Childhood Education was suggested, which was added to the workshop support material in place of the videos.

Regarding workshop 4, in round 1, the reference to the book Escritos de Educação, by Bourdieu (2015), was changed to a more contextualized reading of this book, in the book A escola e o fracasso escolar (Gualtieri & Lugli, 2012). However, in round 2, one of the specialists warned that such content was still unspecific for Early Childhood Education, since there is no ​​school failure in this educational stage.

It is important to note that the idea of ​​“school failure” is unsustainable in Early Childhood Education. The stages of Early Childhood Education are not seen as a consequence of each other, there is no requirement to have a fixed curriculum or prior knowledge for admission. Enrollment of children is based on age criteria. Moreover, this discussion about reproduction at school easily reactivates a compensatory perspective of Early Childhood Education, which has already been superseded by contemporary theories and regulations (E4, Pedagogy).

This was the only workshop that lost full consensus in the second round. The specialist in the educational field suggested several readings (Oliveira, 2002; Arce & Jacomeli, 2012; Pasqualini & Martins, 2008; Santos & Silva, 2016) to delve into discussions specific to ECE, which became part of this workshop in the final framework.

[...] I consider it valid to also address and reflect on practices that go against the image of the school as a reproducer of inequalities, giving space for the participating teachers to share positive experiences and “resistance” to this conservative model of school (E4, Pedagogy).

[...] If education aims at social change, teaching action moves more towards overcoming the current stage of society than the reproduction of inequalities (E3, Philosophy and Modern Languages).

Taking everyday school life as an object of study means paying attention to a myriad of activities that can be analyzed and intervened, such as teaching work and school management, sociability activities, activities with and for the community, in short, all the creation of those who practice and create the school (Almeida, 2022). Far beyond the sum of ordinary tasks, everyday life implies: i) adjusting the analytical scale, seeing the relationship between particular-generic, micro-macro, within a totality and power relations; ii) in recognizing the primacy of everyday life over historical movements, instead of taking the intersubjective act as a direct reflection of social structures, without mediation (Azanha, 2011; Almeida, 2022).

Regarding the strategy, expert 6 (Pedagogy) stated that “[...] it is difficult for teachers to expose their practices, especially those that are subject to criticism. Perhaps it is a case of presenting examples [like commenting on the real case]”. In this regard, in fact, creating a climate conducive to exposure is a challenge. However, there are experiences that show that participants are not opposed to exposing themselves in procedural research, when a cohesive group is formed in a safe environment (Cordeiro et al., 2013). Despite this disagreement, we considered the expert's warning and proposed the use of vignettes that symbolize a problem-situation capable of reflecting daily life, in the form of narratives and chronicles. With this, the fears and discomforts arising from personal exposure can be reduced.

In workshop 5, the joint reading strategy was scored as difficult, since the proposed text is very dense and extensive. It was then thought of using the fifth meeting to continue the debate raised by the vignettes (Workshop 4), but this time relating facts to excerpts extracted from the bibliographic material. This solution is in line with the comment by specialist 1 (occupational therapy) about workshop 5, who stated that “Articulating theory and practice is essential for teachers to understand that the concepts worked on have effects on everyday pedagogical practice and school routine.”

Finally, a specialist warned about the term determination used to talk about the workshop, with the argument that it “[...] assumes that teachers are passive and reproducers of external influences, disregarding their subjectivities and training” (E4, Pedagogy). Such disagreement clearly means a warning for economistic analyzes of reality, which take the dimension of sociability as a direct reflection of the capitalist mode of organization. However, the term determination refers to the materialist understanding of reality, understanding that social phenomena are structured and limited to the historical possibilities of the time in which we live. According to Raymond Williams (2007), economic, political and ideological determinants are factors that exert pressure. The author also states that a distorted view of determination falls into a fatalism in which everything has already been decided and there is no possibility of change, all that remains is to wait for it to happen.

In workshop 6, specialist 2 (Occupational Therapy) proposed that, in addition to discussing the topics addressed, it would be important for the participants to reflect on what was left from the training, “[...] I suggest that the teachers reflect on “what of all this do I take to my daily practice?” (E2, Occupational Therapy). With this proposal, it was understood that the creation of the collective panel added to this reflection would already be a way of evaluating training. Thus, workshop 7 was suppressed, the individual evaluation form was added in the sixth and last workshop, in addition to the creation of a collective panel or mental map, adding the previously worked themes and concepts.

Below is the table with the final summary (Table 2), followed by the table with the description and support material of the workshops (Table 3).

Table 2
Themes, objectives and strategies of the final methodological framework.

	Theme	Objective	Strategy
W.1	Presentation	Introduce the training to the participants	Semantic chain
W.2	Historical construction of the childhood category and idealization of childhood	Discuss the idealization of childhood and multiple childhoods	Construction of a mental map and documentary “The invention of childhood” (Sulzbach, 2000)
W.3	School and Early Childhood Education	Identify the role of public school and education, with emphasis on Early Childhood Education	Game with trigger phrases
W.4	School routine: space for reproduction versus creation	To problematize school activities based on the axes: playing, caring. It is also expected to reflect on the sociocultural overdeterminations that perform educational activities.	Vignettes
W.5	School routine: space for reproduction X creation	Stimulate theorization about practice (praxis) by relating the situations raised by the group to the ideas extracted from theoretical references.	Trigger phrases
W.6	Daily life and school practice and closure	Debate on the topics addressed, identify what still needs to be deepened and evaluate the training process.	Collective panel and evaluation form

Table 3
Description and supporting material of the final methodological framework.

	Description of the workshops	Support material
W. 1	Presentation. Semantic chain: teachers will be asked to speak words and/or phrases about their daily life at school, for example: hard work, tiring, fun, etc. In a second moment, the teachers are encouraged to tell a situation that illustrates this word or phrase that I said earlier, so that, in this way, the specific daily life of the participants can be better known.	-
W.2	Debate on the construction of the childhood category and the participants' views on the subject. To trigger the discussion, it is proposed to build a collective mental map with images (from newspapers, magazines, inserts, etc.) and words to think about childhood representations. Afterwards, the group will watch the documentary “The invention of childhood”, to contrast with the mental map and think about different children and childhoods. Other films and documentaries that can be used are: Invisible children; Bill and John; Born in brothels.	Jardim, C.S. (2003). A construção do conceito de infância. In C. S. Jardim. Brincar: um Campo de Subjetivação na Infância (pp. 13-30). São Paulo: Annablume.
		Lahire, B. (1997). O ponto de vista do conhecimento. In B. Lahire. Sucesso escolar nos meios populares: as razões do improvável (pp. 17-46). São Paulo: Editora Ática.
W.3	At this meeting, the theme addressed will involve the role of school and education with an emphasis on Early Childhood Education. The strategy used to trigger the discussion will be an educational game inspired by previous experiences with young people (Yonekura & Soares, 2010), which proposes that participants position themselves in favor or against an expression or phrase and defend their positions, rephrasing their opinions based on the debate that took place. The phrases will be taken from the books that are part of the bibliography of the workshop. (Vitor Paro's videos were removed, and the book Management in Early Childhood Education - Daily Life Scenes, by Maria Aparecida Guedes Monção was added).	Kuhlmann, M. (1998). Instituições pré-escolares assistencialistas no Brasil (1899-1922). In M. Kuhlmann. Infância e educação infantil: uma abordagem histórica. Porto Alegre: Mediação.
		Kuhlmann, M. (1998). Políticas para a educação infantil: Uma abordagem histórica. In M. Kuhlmann. Infância e educação infantil: uma abordagem histórica. Porto Alegre: Mediação.
		Monção, M.A.G. (2021). Gestão na Educação Infantil - Cenários Do Cotidiano. São Paulo: Edições Loyola.
W.4	Discussion on access to school as a right, the unveiling of the role of the State and neoliberal education, based on themes relevant to Early Childhood Education such as the binomial education and care and anti-school Early Childhood Education. For this workshop, the strategy used will be the vignettes, which symbolize a problem situation to be discussed by the group, created from everyday elements. It is hoped that, based on these, opportunities will be opened for participants to talk about their own experiences. Thinking about interconnected workshops 4 and 5, divided only to provide more time for debate, the base texts for both workshops are the same.	Arce, A. (2001). Compre o kit neoliberal para a educação infantil e ganhe grátis os dez passos para se tornar um professor reflexivo. Educação & Sociedade, 22(74), 251-283.
		Marsiglia, A.C. (2011). A prática pedagógica histórico-crítica na educação infantil e ensino fundamental. São Paulo: Autores Associados.
		Arce, A., & Jacomeli, M. R. M. (2012). Educação Infantil versus Educação Escolar? Entre a (des)caracterização e a precarização do trabalho pedagógico nas salas de aula. Campinas: Autores Associados.
W.5	Deepening the issues discussed in workshop 4, debating the school contradiction thinking about the forces that reproduce social inequalities, but also bringing the counter-hegemonic possibilities of creation, inventiveness and resistance. Thus, the strategy to be used is to bring theoretical content (material from the bibliography) on cards, linking them to the experiences raised by the vignettes.	Same as workshop 4
OF.6	Synthesis and evaluation of the training process. A collective panel will be created with the participants. The proposal is that they write down on colored paper the topics addressed and what was left of each one of them to create a panel of the workshops (It was decided to exclude workshop 7, which existed only for the evaluation of the process and add, at the end of this workshop, the individual assessment instrument).	-

Conclusion

This article presents, as a synthesis of the training process, the systematization of a methodological framework to support the training of workers in Early Childhood Education, highlighting themes and strategies considered relevant by specialists in Pedagogy, Occupational Therapy, Philosophy and Modern Languages. Even though it is pre-established and replicable, the framework is not watertight. It contains themes, references and strategies created by interdisciplinary consensus, which increases the complexity of the approach and the chances of generalization beyond the local interests of the institution that hosted this experience. The method contains key themes, focused on current issues in Early Childhood Education, which are fully capable of unfolding when used by occupational therapists in other contexts.

Daily life (school and pre-school) is a privileged object of occupational therapy intervention in support of EMEI workers, putting in check the reproductive and inventive forces of school activities (Oliveira & Alves, 2001). Playing and childhood were two other relevant themes, traditionally discussed among occupational therapists from a developmental perspective. At this point, the specialists' appeal forced the repositioning of both themes, considering contemporary issues such as: the spontaneity of playing in Early Childhood Education, the relationship between playing, the production of children's culture and adult-centered curricula; the relationship between playing and the subject's social place, according to the Social Protection doctrine present in the Child and Adolescent Statute; between others.

With regard to the limitations of the study, we perceive the small number of specialists as the biggest one, but we argue that the diverse panel of specialists during the construction of the framework fulfilled its role and reached the proposed objectives.

• How to cite: Silva, R. S., Cordeiro, L., & Almeida, D. E. R. G. (2023). Training proposal for professionals of early childhood education: validated contributions of occupational therapy by Delphi technique. Cadernos Brasileiros de Terapia Ocupacional, 31, e3274. https://doi.org/10.1590/2526-8910.ctoAO250132742

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Edited by

Section editor

Profa. Dra. Adriana Miranda Pimentel

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  08 May 2023
• Date of issue
  2023

History

• Received
  14 Feb 2022
• Reviewed
  19 Feb 2022
• Reviewed
  03 Jan 2023
• Accepted
  07 Feb 2023