Urbanities in Progress: Children, Photographs, Talks and Fables on the City

Abstract

This article aims at reflecting on children’s speeches on the city in the context of a pedagogical project carried out in a preschool education class. Among its activities, the project enabled the production of photographic records, made by the children, of the walks and spaces they visited. By means of the analysis of these productions, we tried to grasp the way children understand the space that surrounds them and the relationships existing in this space. To achieve this goal, the researchers followed the activities of a pedagogical project on the occupation of urban space, the types of housing, and the relations of residents of the city of Porto Alegre (Brazil). This project results from the collaboration between the class teacher and the researchers. In this context, we conducted a qualitative and exploratory research. The production of the research data builts mainly on the images and speeches produced by the children together with the field notes of the researchers, as background. The research is still in progress. The partial results point to: (1) the diversity of children’s perspectives about the city and living in the city; (2) the frequent differences of their perspectives compared to the adults’ view. Such diversity could, in principle, be related to: (3) the activity of construction and creation of children’s thought and subjectivity to appropriate and re-signify the urban space and its relations.