Ser professora na educação infantil: aprendizagens entre pares em contexto de trabalho

Abstract

Beginning teachers in early childhood education face challenges directly related to the specificities of childhood and to educational work with children, which requires a broad and diversified repertoire of knowledge, understandings, and professional experiences. In this context, this study aims to investigate the professional learning of beginning early childhood teachers as developed through peer relationships and their implications for teachers’ professional development. The teaching career, especially in its initial years, represents one of the most challenging stages, as it involves the construction of professional identity and the consolidation of pedagogical practices. This research adopts a qualitative approach, based on a bibliographic review that includes national journal articles, master’s theses, and doctoral dissertations, allowing the mapping of different perspectives on beginning teaching. The study is mainly grounded in the works of Huberman (2000), Tardif and Lessard (2014), Nóvoa (2013), and Imbernón (2010), who discuss teacher education and professional development, peer collaboration, and the challenges of the early career stage. The results indicate that exchanges between beginning teachers and more experienced colleagues foster retention in the profession, the appropriation of pedagogical knowledge, and the re-signification of teaching practices. The study also reveals that further analyses may be incorporated into the theoretical discussion in order to broaden the understanding of how these interactions contribute to the constitution of teacher professionalism and to the quality of pedagogical practices in early childhood education.