A educação na infância e seu papel para a formação de um ethos democrático em Martha Nussbaum

Abstract

The aim of this dissertation is to show, based on Martha Nussbaum, how early childhood education plays a fundamental role in helping to build an education aimed at a democratic ethos. The problem that guides the research centers around the following question: What is the role of childhood education in the constitution of a democratic ethos according to Nussbaum's perspective? The study was carried out from bibliographical research, of a hermeneutic nature, entering into Nussbaum's texts, especially in the Nonprofit works, El Hidcamiento del Humano and Paisajes del Pensamiento, as well as Winnicott's book The Environment and the Maturation Processes. Nussbaum's conception of childhood is a direct heir of Winnicott's psychoanalysis, which is why, in the first chapter, we present the contributions of this author in relation to early childhood, the initial relationship between mother and baby, as well as the process that goes from absolute dependence on relative dependence, on object relations theory and on identity constitution. Then, in chapter two, based on the theory of emotions in Nussbaum, we deal with childhood, the risk of “hiding the human” through it and the need for the educability of emotions. We first discussed how the inadequate orientation of projective disgust and primitive shame in early childhood can seriously damage education for a democratic ethos. Based on this step, we indicate the educability of emotions as a way to circumvent such damage. Finally, in the third chapter, our objective is to present how the three pillars of the Nussbaunian “Socratic pedagogy” - thinking for oneself, world citizenship and narrative imagination - can be read as a productive reading key to increment- childhood education oriented towards a democratic ethos.