Maps, voices and urban everyday: how children´s lives in a public school in Rio de Janeiro are spatialized

Abstract

This article deals with the investigation into children's narratives circulating through the city of Rio de Janeiro and arriving at the Instituto de Aplicação Fernando Rodrigues da Silveira (CAp-UERJ). The geographic context of CAp-UERJ is not that of an educational institution regionalized in the neighborhood. This means considering the movements of its students, residents of different regions of the metropolitan region, and the relationships of movement and freedom they establish with spaces. In an attempt to understand children's ways of experiencing the urban spatial model and its singularities, we sought to study everyday paths, territories and landscapes. The idea of ​​research with children implies affirming a more horizontal political option, based on the spatialization of students' lives. Lev Vigotski and Alexander Luria, theorists from the historical-cultural perspective, were the interlocutors in the comparison regarding the understanding of children as beings of language, establishing a link with the Geography of Childhood with regard to thinking about the human condition situated in space and in time, a unit. As a methodology, we work on qualitative research based on the observation and recording of children's spatial experiences through cartography, field notes and conversation circles produced by students from a class belonging to the fifth year of elementary school. Therefore, the condition of children's authorship is marked through their multiple languages. The investigation made it possible to identify which children's places are constituted in the city and their demands for existential justice. When reporting experiences with children in the early years, a reflection that contributes to debates surrounding the influence of geographic location in society becomes important.