Brazilian child education policies over the last four decades have occurred in response to various tensions. In the 1970s, the awakening of social movement placed social demands on the agenda. In the 1980s, pressures in other direction provoked, on the one hand, the expansion of child education generally in line with the "low cost" model, and on the other hand, social consciousness of child education as the right of small children to education and the right to support on the part of working fathers and mothers (the Constitution of 1988). The article describes and analyses the tensions present and their consequences at three moments in the history of contemporary Brazilian child education: the phase of expansion during the military government; the innovations caused by the Constitution of 1988; and the impact of contemporary educational reforms under the aegis of the "Washington Consensus". Description and analysis will be done in the context of the models propounded by the multilateral organizations.
