PRODUCTION OF SUBJECTIVITY

school-family relations and the discourses of the infantile school

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to discuss how the discourses and practice in infantile education establish identities/differences, thus producing subjectivity. We more specifically reflect on the school-family relations, approaching the discourses the infantile school has constructed on the family and how these produced meanings are present in the practices of these institutions. We also present a theoretical discussion on the infantile school, the contemporaneous family, the curriculum – an important cultural mediator – and the process of constitution of identities/differences. The speech of two pedagogical coordinators from infantile school enabled us to reflect on the discourse construction concerning the family, the relations of knowledge/power which go across them and their implications on the production od subjectivity. We found out that there is a concern to emphasize the families diversity and the need to respect them. However, at the same time, we could perceive that some signification are established and even more important, the school seems to place itself in a position of knowledge which allows it to contest the families. Lastly we discuss the possibilities that children, targets of this knowledge/power, have.