Retorno presencial da educação infantil: percepções das/os professoras/es acerca do desenvolvimento socioafetivo

Abstract

In 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the social distancing measure constituted a way of containment of the dissemination of the disease. This way, the children needed to remain in their homes, and the early childhood education units had their on-site activities suspended temporarily. However, since september 2020, Rio Grande Sul's schools had the option to return to their on-site activities following a series of biosafety rules. This study aimed to understand, from the perspective of early childhood teachers, the socio-affective development of 2 and 3-year-old children, when returning to on-site activities. The research, of qualitative nature, had as participants five early childhood teachers that worked with 2 and 3-year-old children, from public and private schools of Santa Maria/RS. The data collection happened online through a questionnaire of sociodemographic data and a semi-structured interview. The data were analyzed from a thematic analysis and defined in four categories: 1) A 2 and 3-year-old child; 2) The on-site return and its challenges from the biosafety rules; 3) Child socio-affective development and its difficulties; 4) The teachers' intermediation and the advancements from the on-site return. The results showed a series of difficulties in child socio-affective development, such as struggles in interaction among the children, autonomy development, aside from insecurity to separate themselves from their families. In contrast, many advancements in these aspects were identified from the on-site return. Thus, the importance of discussing interaction and potentiality of early childhood education for socio-affective development.