The study analyzed socialization practices promoted within early education settings from a sociocultural constructivist perspective on human development. It aimed at investigating the promotion and/or inhibition of different modes of human interdependency, namely, cooperation, competition and individualism, which are associated with specific social interactions, and values/beliefs orientations. Social interaction patterns presented by two teachers and their respective 4 to 6 year-old children were analyzed in two different educational contexts. Results showed the promotion of individualistic interactive patterns and competive, with almost no incentive to peer cooperation, neither at a daily basis nor at the level of the teacher-planned structured activity, which was microanalyzed.
Cooperation; Competition; Individuality
