A voz das crianças

: uma análise das actividades de enriquecimento curricular

Abstract

The investigation The voice of children: an analysis of the curriculum enrichment activities recognizes the children as social actors, individuals with rights, as such with the right to take part in meters of their own interest. The curriculum enrichment activities came to fill their time without taking into account their point of view. If participate means take part in, it is necessary to hear what children have to say on this time of theirs, on their school, and on the game and play, which are no longer theirs. It is the assumption that it is through action and through the voice of children, in the multiplicity of their languages that makes it is possible to construct a set of valid theoretical knowledge for a better educational intervention with children.This investigation, carried out within the qualitative paradigm of participative nature, seeks to interpret the meanings given by children to the experiences of their everyday lives, in particular to the way they manage their routines, in what concerns the time they spend in the curriculum enrichment activities and in what they do after these activities. This investigation project, undertaken in two schools situated in different areas – one in a rural area, another in an urban one – involves the whole range of children attending the curriculum enrichment activities in both schools, and presents the children’s interpretation of these activities, of what they do and what they aren’t able to do due to lack of time, what they “study” and what they cannot play.This work is supported by a theoretical framework, such as the national curriculum, the functions of school, democracy, participation, play, which made it possible to analyze and question the infant participation in the management of the time that children (don’t) do of their everyday life and the participation that they (don´t) have in meters of their own interest.

Date of Award	2010
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Teresa Sarmento (Supervisor)