"Who and where are the babies?” Concept, policies and service in Baixada Fluminense
babies; service; educational policies.
This dissertation, “Who and where are the babies?” Concept, policies and service in Baixada Fluminense, wants to consider the baby as social category, through the analysis of its condition, situation and place and has as field research a region situated in the state of Rio de Janeiro called Baixada Fluminense. The research wants to know: the baby in a conceptual perspective, in its condition of subject and person, starting from the subjectification process , putting it in a historic process of services for children in Brazil, in the academical production and in the policies having as theoretical-methodological referential some principles of Lacan, Winnicott, Pikler, Arendt e Foucault; its situation starting from the educational service that is offered to the under-one-year-old children by four cities in Baixada Fluminense- Guapimirim, Itaguaí, Japeri e Mesquita; and its place in the kindergarten policies, through reflections about the babies’ identity and visibility, in accordance with Philosophy, Psychoanalysis, Political Science and Law, as fields of expertise. The instruments used for the data collection were questionnaire and interview, applied to the representatives of The Municipal Departments of Education. The educational service for the under-one-year-old babies is a not carried out by most part of the cities in Baixada Fluminense, and it can be analysed under three aspects: lack of priority, the uncertainty about the starting age for the nursery service, and the criteria for the acess- what makes the service for the babies discriminatory. The relevance of this research is in its contribution as parameter for public policies elaboration for this age group.