“Agora não é hora de brincar”: O lugar do brincar na Educação Infantil – Uma análise da BNCC e das DCNEI à luz da Psicologia Histórico-Cultural

Abstract

This undergraduate final paper analyzes the conceptions of play present in Early Childhood Education policies, with emphasis on the National Common Curricular Base (BNCC) and the National Curricular Guidelines for Early Childhood Education (DCNEI), based on the assumptions of Historical-Cultural Psychology. The objective is to critically analyze how play is conceptualized in these normative documents and to what extent these conceptions are materialized in everyday educational practices. The study problematizes the tension between the legal recognition of play as a structuring axis and a learning right and the school reality, in which play is often treated in an instrumental way, reduced to a secondary activity or mere entertainment. Methodologically, the research is characterized as qualitative, with a documentary and bibliographic nature, grounded in theoretical contributions from Historical-Cultural Psychology and in the critical analysis of official documents that guide Early Childhood Education in Brazil. The results indicate that, although educational policies guarantee play as a pedagogical principle and a child’s right, its implementation in schools is still marked by reductionist conceptions, which disregard play as a central activity for children’s psychological development. It is concluded that the persistence of these conceptions reveals gaps in teacher education, which hinder the construction of pedagogical intentionality capable of promoting cultural appropriation and children’s integral development. Therefore, the effective realization of play as a fundamental right requires conscious, theoretically grounded pedagogical mediation that overcomes spontaneous practices and rigidly school-centered routines in Early Childhood Education.