Preschool education in the city of Santo André: from private initiatives to the children’s recreation center (1954-1969)

Abstract

Schools designed to care for and educate young children in the city of Santo André were organized throughout the 1950s and
1960s, when, as a result of industrialization, the city experienced a great development and an increase in its population. The objective of this text is to investigate the history of the first external schools for young children until the creation of the public education network for children in the city of Santo André, in the state of São Paulo, which was responsible for caring for children aged 4 to 6, between the years 1954 and 1969. The temporal delimitation is justified because on 1954.09.27 the law creating
the Education Department of the city of Santo André was published, and, in 1969, was created the Children’s Recreation Course in the municipality. Legal regulations, newspapers, photographs and interviews are taken as sources. As a research procedure, literature review, selection and documentary analysis were used. Newspaper advertisements publicized the possibility of registrations offered by the various private institutions in the city and also offered in the municipal public project
created by the Sports Division of Santo André. Through the legal system, it was possible to find people in the organization of early childhood education, as well as the investments allocated to them. To reference this work, we used the works of Escolano (1998) and Kuhlmann (2017) for contributions to understanding this kind of educational institutions. As a result, it is possible to state that the Children’s Recreation Center was considered an innovative municipal facility, with quality and approved by the population. It had a pedagogical proposal that valued sports and the participation of families in school activities. The construction of lots
of new buildings made it possible to disseminate municipal education throughout the city and publicize the government’s public policies.