CHILDREN'S AGENCY IN DAYCARE: PLAY AS A SPACE FOR EXPLORATION AND DISCOVERY

Abstract

Children's agency constitutes an important dimension of the experiences children have in daycare centers, especially when play is understood as a space for participation, exploration, and discovery. This study aimed to analyze how play experiences contribute to the development of children's agency in the daily routine of a daycare center located in the municipality of Bertioga, São Paulo. It is a qualitative study conducted through semi-structured interviews with four teachers from the institution. The results showed that the teachers understand play as a fundamental experience for child development and recognize its relationship with children's autonomy, imagination, creativity, language, interaction, and expression. It was also identified that children's agency manifests in situations where children have opportunities to choose materials and games, create narratives, assume roles, negotiate rules, express their interests, and actively participate in the proposed experiences. The organization of spaces, the availability of diverse materials, opportunities for making choices, and teacher mediation proved to be important elements in fostering children's participation and autonomy. However, challenges were identified regarding the number of children, the organization of spaces, the availability of materials, and the time allocated for play. The study concludes that play constitutes a privileged space for the development of children's agency when it enables children to participate, choose, create, interact, and express their ideas, while being aligned with intentionality and teacher mediation.