ASSESSMENT IN EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION FROM AN INCLUSIVE PERSPECTIVE: A DOCUMENTARY ANALYSIS BETWEEN PEDAGOGICAL MONITORING AND THE PRODUCTION OF NORMALITIES

Abstract

This article analyzes how Brazilian normative documents guide assessment in Early Childhood Education, problematizing these guidelines in light of a Foucauldian framework concerning power, knowledge and norm. It is a qualitative documentary study whose corpus consists of the Law of Guidelines and Bases of National Education (Law No. 9,394/1996), the National Curricular Guidelines for Early Childhood Education (CNE/CEB Resolution No. 5/2009), and the National Common Curricular Base (2017). The analysis shows that these documents guide the monitoring and recording of children’s development and learning processes, without the purpose of selection, promotion or retention, although they differ in their level of detail. The discussion shows that the formal guarantee of non-retention does not, by itself, eliminate effects of comparison, categorization and positioning that may be present in pedagogical records. It concludes that, to become an inclusive practice, assessment must go beyond formal compliance with legal provisions and remain open to the plurality of childhoods, contextualized processes and the problematization of the criteria that guide the pedagogical gaze.