Participação das crianças em projeto político-social elaborado por adultos: a Plenarinha no Distrito Federal

EnglishTalking about children´s participation leads to different degrees and possibilities in which children would have their opinions taken into account and practice citizenship through processes started by adults or by the children themselves. Instead, there should be balanced power relations and partnership. Often, children´s participation is decoratively mentioned in projects that utilize the children´s speech only to reassert that children were involved in processes and had their voices heard. However, such illustration has to do only with the absence of children´s participation and the concepts around this complex process should be reassessed. Paying attention to that, this paper has sought to understand how small children participate in the Plenarinha (little plenary) in the Federal District as proposed by its Education Department. By means of a qualitative research utilizing documental analysis, the aim was to screen the official texts that had been published and the news stories appearing in the newspaper Correio Braziliense to check whether the program took the children´s voice into consideration when implementing changes in child education. Upon the analysis of the documents, it may be said that the program did not include the childhoods present in the child education´s institutions and, also, the program´s documents concealed how the processes of children´s participation took place. It is noted that the adult-centered perspective represents an obstacle to legitimate the children´s social action, as children have their competency compared to adult standards. This eventually makes this minority group invisible, as they have historically been marginalized from social participation. portuguesFalar de participacao infantil remete a distintos graus e possibilidades em que as criancas tenham suas opinioes consideradas e possam exercer a cidadania por meio de processos iniciados por adultos ou por elas, mas que haja relacoes de equilibrio de poder e parceria. Frequentemente, a participacao das criancas e referida em projetos de forma decorativa, usando as falas das criancas, para reafirmar que elas estiveram envolvidas nos processos e tiveram suas vozes consideradas. Entretanto, essa ilustracao remete apenas a etapas de nao participacao das criancas e que demandam repensar conceitos que envolvem esse complexo processo. Atentando-se a essas questoes, o presente texto procurou compreender como ocorre a participacao das criancas pequenas na Plenarinha no Distrito Federal proposta pela Secretaria de Estado de Educacao. Por meio de uma pesquisa qualitativa, que fez uso de analise documental, buscou-se verificar nos textos oficiais publicados e noticias vinculadas no jornal Correio Braziliense se o programa considerava a voz das criancas na implementacao de mudancas na educacao infantil. Apos analise dos documentos, pode-se referir que o programa nao contemplou as infâncias presentes nas instituicoes de educacao infantil, bem como ocultou nos documentos como os processos de participacao das criancas ocorreram. Nota-se que a perspectiva adultocentrica colocase como um impeditivo para legitimar a acao social das criancas, que tem sua competencia comparada a padroes adultos, e que acabam por invisibilizar esse grupo minoritario, que historicamente esteve a margem da participacao social.