Letramentos como atividades humanas: uma investigação sobre a construção de sentidos e significados

Abstract

This thesis intended to investigate the attribution of senses and meanings constructed by a group of three-year-old children to literacy in the context of a Municipal School of Early Childhood Education in Belo Horizonte, from 2017 to 2019. A qualitative research was adopted, based on the assumptions of the Cultural-Historical Theory and of Ethnography in Education. Vygotsky’s Unit of Analysis Method and the concept of Perezhivanie were adopted. The theoretical-methodological construct affect-situated social cognition-cultures-languages in use (ACCL) supported the Unit of Analysis, Living Experiences(perezhivania)/Literacies. This unit was used as a basis to analyze the events and understand the senses and meanings constructed by Lúcia and Larissa – expressive ethnographic cases – in their literacy experiences in the context of the nursery and of the activity room. The construction of the empirical material took place through contact with the Archive of the Childhood and Schooling Longitudinal Research Program, which has almost 900 hours of footage, standardized field notes and photographs, recorded through participant observation in a class of 12 babies during the years 2017, 2018 and 2019. From the records of the collection, 68 literacy events were identified in 2017; 107, in 2018; and 158, in 2019. Based on these events, maps were constructed, which chose the expressive cases of Lúcia and Larissa. Such cases allowed the observation that the experiences of each one in the nursery and in the one and two year old activity room were marked by different possibilities of (coexistence) with classmates, teachers, assistants and researchers. Several literacies were present in the class: literary, musical, digital, schooling, academic. It was considered, therefore, that the dialectical unit, Living Experiences(perezhivania)/Literacies proved to be adequate to understand the senses and meanings of the selected literacy events. It was also considered that, during the three years, what counted as literacies was transformed qualitatively over time and events when the attributions of senses and meanings by Lúcia, Larissa, their classmates and teachers were intertwined in the dialectical relationship between the individuals and the collective as they transformed social meanings into personal meanings. It is argued that such meanings allow understanding human begins as social begins, inserted in culture, and building culture through emotions and the languages in use. It is also argued that there is a need to question the use of the words “Alfabetização” [initial reading and writing] and “literacy” to discuss the literacies. It is argued that literacies are situated human activities. The choice of the word “Letramentos” [Literacies] is not limited to a terminological option, but represents placing the human, people, at the center of yhe practices. Humanizing literacies involves historical time, cultures and knowledge of who people are.