European Early Childhood Education Research Journal

ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/recr20

COVID-19 and early childhood in Brazil: impacts on

children’s well-being, education and care

Maria Malta Campos & Lívia Fraga Vieira

To cite this article: Maria Malta Campos & Lívia Fraga Vieira (2021): COVID-19 and early
childhood in Brazil: impacts on children’s well-being, education and care, European Early Childhood
Education Research Journal

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/1350293X.2021.1872671

Published online: 12 Jan 2021.

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EUROPEAN EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION RESEARCH JOURNAL
https://doi.org/10.1080/1350293X.2021.1872671

COVID-19 and early childhood in Brazil: impacts on children’s

well-being, education and care
Maria Malta Camposa and Lívia Fraga Vieira b

a
Department of Educational Research, Fundação Carlos Chagas, São Paulo, Brazil; bSchool of Education,
Federal University of Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
This article describes and analyses the corona virus pandemic Early childhood; COVID-19;
consequences on Brazilian early childhood education, on small Brazil; children’s narratives;
children families’ life conditions and on teacher’s work, since teachers’ new roles
March 2020, when preventive measures, such as social distancing
and schools closure, were adopted by states and municipal
authorities in the country. The text covers four main aspects of
this situation: (a) economic and social factors affecting families
with small children during the pandemic; (b) early childhood
education policies and initiatives during the period of school
closure; (c) the new roles of teachers; (d) a number of narratives
from small children experiences and feelings. Data were obtained
from different sources: reports published on the Internet;
preliminary data from on going researches; and information given
by some public schools. The collected information shows how
school and home’s spaces and times are now mixed up and how
teachers and parents roles are being shared since the schools
closed. Children tell how they miss going to school, their teachers
and friends; parents miss the school support and its presence in
their lives; teachers have to improvise using virtual means of
communication and are afraid of returning to schools when they
reopen.

Why did the corona virus come right now that I am a child? (Alice, 6 years old, interior of
the state of Bahia)

As the rest of the world, Brazil is suffering the serious consequences of the COVID – 19
pandemic. The American continent was one of the last regions to be hit by the virus and
Brazil is the second most seriously affected country so far, with reported over 160,000
deaths by the end of October 2020. When social contact restrictions were adopted in
most states and municipalities, around the third week of March, the school first semester
had just started, after the two months summer vacations. For many children, it was their
first experience at a day care centre, a preschool or an elementary school, soon to be
interrupted for many months. At the end of October, some states and municipal edu-
cational systems were beginning to reopen their schools, with several restrictions and
not for all students.

CONTACT Maria Malta Campos mmalta@uol.com.br

© 2021 EECERA
2 M. MALTA CAMPOS AND L. F. VIEIRA

The pandemic reached a country already dealing with many serious problems: an
economic crisis, with rising unemployment rates, and a political crisis, with a federal gov-
ernment somewhat paralysed under the new rightist populist Party elected for the 2019/
2022 period. On top of that, the social isolation measures and the health emergency are
hitting deeply the poorer and most vulnerable families and their children.
Following a Supreme Court Mandate, states and municipalities were considered as the
responsible instances for decisions about lockdown measures and schools closure around
the country, including public and private institutions. In the absence of the federal govern-
ment coordination and support, universities and research institutions, as well as many
private agencies, NGOs, professional and community associations, including TV and
other media networks, started to have an increasing significant role in this situation. The
lack of a national coordination also resulted in different options, at different moments
during the pandemic, between the 26 states, the capital and the 5650 municipalities.
This article is based on a review that covers the available information and research
data on: (a) economic and social factors affecting families with small children during
the pandemic crisis; (b) early childhood education policies and initiatives during the
period of school closure; (c) the role of teachers during this period; (d) a number of nar-
ratives from small children experiences obtained from different sources.
Economic and social conditions, examined in section (a), are important aspects that
must be taken in account in order to understand the general context where small chil-
dren, their families and their communities try to adapt since the beginning of the pan-
demic crisis. For the majority of the 4 and 5 years old and for a third of the younger
children, their families and their teachers, the schools and day care centres closure all
over the country was a major change in their everyday lives: the article sections (b)
and (c) presents a synthesis of the available data on how schools and teachers tried to
reach small children and their families in this new situation. The small children narra-
tives selected for the last section came from different types of sources that were available
to the authors: although they do not come from representative samples of the Brazilian
population, they bring the voices of young children from the country very diverse regions
and suggest that their experiences and feelings have many similarities.
This review was prepared taking in account an ethical perspective on the right of small
children, their families and their teachers to be heard during a major social crisis caused
by the COVID-19 pandemic. The search and selection of the studies presented in the
article gave priority to surveys and research reports that shared similar values and fol-
lowed ethical procedures.

A. Economic and social factors affecting families with small children

Before the pandemic, the number of 0–6 years old children in poor households was
already high: 5.4 million, 29% of the total age population (NCPI 2020, 8). While the econ-
omical crisis and unemployment rates were rising, many social programmes suffered
from governmental budget cuts adopted since 2016 – after the impeachment of the re-
elected President –, including the Bolsa Família Programme, a national social welfare
programme that distributes monthly allowances for very poor families.
A July survey promoted by UNICEF with a representative sample of the population
from 18 years of age on,1 found out that 55% had suffered an income loss; for those
 EUROPEAN EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION RESEARCH JOURNAL 3

living with children and adolescents from 0 to 17 years old – 40% of the sample – 63%
reported such a loss. A quarter of those had received only half of their former income in
the month before the survey. These losses affected 67% of the poorest fifth of the popu-
lation, comparing to 35% of the highest monthly income group. One consequence of
such income cuts was the shortage of food: 27% of those living with children and ado-
lescents reported moments when there were no more food available and they did not
have any money to buy more; 8% said they did not eat a meal because the lack of
money (UNICEF 2020).
This situation got worse with the school closure, because children and adolescents
enrolled in the public education systems lost their daily free school meals. According
to the UNICEF survey, 58% of those living with children and adolescents reported
eating more industrialised food than before.
Schools were allowed to use resources from the School Meals National Program to dis-
tribute food supplies to students during the pandemic: 83% of the municipal systems
were doing this, but not for all students, probably because the federal programme
covers only an average of 54% of their costs, as reported by another survey, sponsored
by 26 State’s Audit Courts and four local Courts. This study, that covered 17 states
and 232 municipal systems, 12 from each state,2 found out that 66% of the municipalities
were delivering food supplies to children’s families at the school site and 21% at the stu-
dents’ home, but only 44% declared to include all their students in those programmes
during the pandemic. A few states and municipalities were offering food vouchers for
the most vulnerable families (Instituto Ruy Barbosa 2020, 46–51).
As another document points out, schools and day-care centres not only provide edu-
cation and regular meals, but also can protect children from abuse and violence at the
family environment: staying at home can be a real risk for some children from vulnerable
families during these months of school closure (NCPI 2020, 22).
With the social situation getting worse under the pandemic, the National Congress
approved a federal emergency programme that provides a monthly stimulus income
(BRL $600.00 = US$ 1073) for people over 18 years of age, for a maximum of two
persons per household, aimed for those without formal jobs, retirement or insurance,
who have a monthly income of three minimum wages (US$ 560) or less (NCPI 2020,
34). This monthly income was extended for more four months, until December 2020,
but with half its value and with more restrictions for those who can receive it.
More than 30 million Brazilians had received this emergency money by mid-April
(NCPI 2020, 34), but the UNICEF survey reported that by July, only 34% had received
all the three parcels already distributed (UNICEF 2020, 19).
As the pandemic situation continues, its dramatic consequences on children from the
most vulnerable families will probably have long term effects that we cannot yet evaluate.

B. Early childhood education initiatives: trying to reach families and

children during the lockdown
Since the schools have closed, 8.9 million Brazilian children from 0 to 5 years old experi-
enced important changes in their everyday lives: they represent 93% of the 4–5 and 34%
of the 0–3 years old children enrolled at preschools and day-care centres. The majority of
4 M. MALTA CAMPOS AND L. F. VIEIRA

children (71%) are enrolled at municipal public schools, and 25% go to private ones
(INEP 2020).
Babies and toddlers from 0 to 2 years old represent a smaller proportion of children at
day-care centres; most children start early childhood education at 2 or 3 years old. A 2009
Constitutional Amendment extended to students from 4 to 17 years of age the compul-
sory enrolment in education, including for the first time the preschool years and second-
ary education.4
As Cardini and D’Alessandre describe, during the lockdown ‘the school transferred
itself to homes’ (2020, 113). Almost no one was prepared to teach or learn without a
direct human contact and interaction, so teachers and administrators had to improvise
new ways to reach school children at home. For children enrolled at day-care centres,
preschools and the first years of elementary school, this implied asking adults at home
to help them with the proposed activities.
A number of surveys collected information from the local educational networks about
schools initiatives during this period. Elementary and secondary schools are usually the
main focus, with a growing public concern about the consequences of the schools closure
on the students learning process. But there is also information about early childhood
education initiatives in some reports, mostly produced by civil society organisations.
Information given by municipal educational authorities between May and June shows
how different regional realities affect children and their families during the pandemic. In
the North and Northeast regions, the least developed ones, 25% of the municipalities
informed that they had not adopted any strategy for reaching the students during the pre-
vious months of school closure; in the South and the Southeast, all had developed some
alternative means to reach them (Instituto Ruy Barbosa 2020, 6).
“We are studying the alternative of using a municipal vehicle to send activities for students
(…) many of them live in isolated farms, distant villages where there are not cell phone
signals, neither Internet … ” Northeast municipal system. (Instituto Ruy Barbosa 2020, 6)

The report presents some examples of activities proposed by the municipal departments
of education for small children:
‘Videos with stories, games (…) sent by WhatsApp’; ‘ … basic notions on numbers and
letters’; ‘ … printed material with recommendations for parents and activities for children’;
‘ … drawings, games, for parents to practice with children (…) story telling.’; ‘ … children’s
literature, (…) modelling dough and painting kits’. (Instituto Ruy Barbosa 2020, 11–13)

Most municipal systems (41%) offer those kinds of materials every week; 31% every two
weeks and 28% declared to do it every day. A few systems use TV channels with pro-
grammes aimed at small children. (Instituto Ruy Barbosa 2020, 12–13)
Social and economic inequalities are reflected on very different conditions to access at
distance education: ‘only 31% of public elementary school students had a computer/
tablet and broadband at home’, comparing to ‘77% of private school students’, and
public schools the most vulnerable population attend ‘often lack the structure to offer
online classes.’ (NCPI 2020, 30)
Income inequality also means that poor children live at very different environments,
comparing to middle class families: slums and neighbourhoods without sanitation, small
spaces for many relatives living together, children and adolescents not having a proper
 EUROPEAN EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION RESEARCH JOURNAL 5

place to study and play. The lack of many students’ basic living conditions gains a new
visibility in society, as examples of these inequalities appear in the media and are shared
by the social networks.
Patricia Redondo (2020) comments about the shame many families and even some
teachers feel when exposing their poor home interiors images during the virtual activities
in Argentina. In Brazil, some examples of similar images circulate in the Internet and are
reproduced in the press: schools are looking into their students’ homes, usually for the
first time.
Even if paediatricians do not approve the use of electronic means of communication,
and the National Curriculum Guidelines also rejects at distance educational activities for
small children, day-care centres and preschools had to find a way to reach children and
families during the long period of school closure.
A document published at the beginning of October, synthetises findings from five
different national surveys developed between March and July 2020: three of them
cover early childhood education. One of these, the FCC survey,5 reported that 68% of
early childhood teachers declared that they were spending more time working with
‘new resources and tools’, and 64% told they were giving families guidance and
support to help children with the proposed activities (FCC/F. Lemann/F. R. Marinho/
I. Península/Itaú Social, 2020, 6–9).
Teachers at a municipal preschool in the outskirts of São Paulo describe how they
dealt with this situation when their school closed:
… We were worried about how families would organize themselves to subsist, worried
about the children, we knew that Internet and phone connections in the neighbourhood
are precarious (…). Between April and June we reached about 90% of families by phone,
Facebook and WhatsApp (…). Since July we noticed that our interactions with families
were decreasing (…). We found out that many families had changed their cell phone
numbers, the home telephones were not in place anymore, others had moved and were
living in someone else’s place in order to get help, because it was turning too difficult to con-
tinue to pay the rent, many women got jobless … (EMEI Jardim Monte Belo 2020b, 1)

This case represents the most common situation that schools have to deal with: in order
to communicate with children and families, 82% of the early childhood education tea-
chers reported using Whatsapp, 34% social networks, 21% phone calls, 20% virtual learn-
ing systems, 11% e-mail and 5% Youtube6 (FCC/F. Lemann/F. R. Marinho/I. Península/
Itaú, 2020, 11).
A research group from the State University of Bahia,7 in the Northeast region, found
out a similar picture at 38 municipalities in two regions from the interior of the state,
between July and August. Almost all of them were adopting some kind of remote com-
munication with families having 0–5 years old children enrolled at early childhood edu-
cation. Most Departments of Education reported a distribution of printed materials, and
one third said they sent audio and video materials prepared by teachers to children’s
families (ObEI 2020a, 5–7). The same research project used a questionnaire for
parents accessible by Internet during the month of July: they received 522 answers,
19% from rural areas. Almost all of them had been in contact with their children’s
school, more than 60% by cell phone and 45% at home, meeting school personnel that
were delivering material with proposed activities for children (ObEI 2020b, 17).
6 M. MALTA CAMPOS AND L. F. VIEIRA

The São Paulo municipal school send a questionnaire8 to the children families by
August and received answers from 124 of them. One question was about the access
to remote learning during the pandemic: 40% told they had received the school orien-
tations by Facebook and Whatsapp; 22% accessed Google Classroom, the Municipal
Education Department platform; 30% cited many reasons for not receiving or using
these contents, including lack of Internet connection. Answering another question,
67% had received the book with suggestions of activities for preschool children
(either printed or E-book), distributed by the Municipal Department of Education
(EMEI Jardim Monte Belo 2020b, 2).
The available information indicates that parents or other adults that live with small
children must work with them following the school orientations. Women are the ones
supposed to take over this chore: mainly mothers, but also grandmothers or older sib-
lings. It seems that those who are in charge of children education at school and at
home continue to follow the dominant gender hierarchy in society during the
pandemic.
By April, one month after the schools closed for children, educators from the EMEI
Jardim Monte Belo posted their first questionnaire for parents and children at the
school site. They received answers from 70 families, and 50 children,9 out of the
total 420 children who are enrolled in the preschool, that before the pandemic
worked with two daily shifts. The majority of children told their mothers were the
ones caring for them at home (EMEI Jardim Monte Belo 2020a, 6). Some months
latter, a mother of a 4 years old boy, who is also a teacher, described her experience
during the pandemic:
I am a mother and a teacher, I have a lot of work … when there is time I talk to him, I try to
stimulate the language, we play, we make drawings in the sand box (…) I gave him a truck
with shapes and numbers, he identifies all of them. (…) There is such a psychological
pressure … I am forgetting things, I feel stressed, my children say that I am repeating
things a thousand times … (EMEI Jardim Monte Belo 2020b, 8–9)

This example shows a mother who went to college, in order to become a teacher, and
knows what is expected from her during the time her son is not attending preschool
as before. Even so, she feels highly stressed in this situation. But for many children,
adults at home who have a lower level of education feel insecure about what they
should do with their children at home and lack the material conditions to help them
in this new situation. Another mother, from the same preschool, explains how difficult
it is for her to follow the school orientations:
Between buying food and diapers for my children or paying for cell phone credits, I choose
the food and the diapers; I have two small children, I lost my job, and the government
money just covers that. So I apologize, but I cannot follow what you are doing. If you
have something to help me, please call me, because I cannot call you. (EMEI Jardim
Monte Belo 2020b, 7)

Families in Bahia, who answered the ObEI questionnaire, revealed a similar kind of
worries: losing their jobs (68%); not having enough food (60%); getting sick (82%).
They also were worried about finding someone to take care of children (58%) and
anxious about how much time it would take to schools to reopen (78%) (ObEI
2020a, 13).
 EUROPEAN EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION RESEARCH JOURNAL 7

C. Teachers: new roles, new challenges

In the last two decades, early childhood education had a very significant expansion in
Brazil. Between 1999 and 2019, enrolment numbers at day care centres for ages 0–3
were multiplied by 3 and enrolment at preschools for ages 4 and 5 grew 23% (INEP
2000; INEP 2020).
This first stage of the basic education has become an important working field for tea-
chers and other staff personnel: during this period, it was necessary to contract 264 thou-
sand more teachers for day care centres and 113 thousand more for preschools. In 2019,
early childhood education was employing 19% of all teachers engaged in basic education.
Two thirds of them had a college degree obtained at Pedagogy courses that provide a
teaching licence (INEP 2020).
Between April and May 2020, after the interruption of students’ attendance, two thirds
of the municipalities maintained their school programmes calendar and the majority of
early childhood teachers were asked to continue with their pedagogical activities (MIEIB
2020; UNDIME 2020). Most departments of education adopted remote learning strat-
egies and teachers’ work was moved from schools to homes.
The MIEIB10 survey, that collected information from 1904 municipalities in this
period, shows that they adopted three kinds of measures directed to teachers: telling
them to send activities to be performed by parents with their children at home (82%),
getting in touch with families and giving them guidance (65%), and to attend on line
in service formation. In 37% of municipalities teachers were required to participate in
schools or departments activity shifts (MIEIB 2020).
As for teachers’ labour rights, 48% of municipalities adopted salary’s reductions,
34% considered this period as an anticipation of vacation days, 34% used an ‘hour
bank’ system to be compensated later on, and 21% also chose to dismiss staff
(MIEIB 2020).
A research conducted by Gestrado11 (2020) posted a questionnaire in a GoogleForm
platform in June with questions about teachers working conditions, interactions with stu-
dents, formation and health. Early childhood teachers represented 21% of the total
sample: 3253 among 15,654. Women represented 95% of them, almost the same pro-
portion registered by official census data (97,5%). They are also younger than the
average age of the total sample and 88% of them work at municipal school networks.
One of the research objectives was to get information about how these teachers were
dealing with remote learning technologies, and how this new teaching context was
affecting their daily work conditions and their relationships with children. Almost all
of them (91%) told that they did not have any prior experience with remote learning,
a higher proportion than the percentage obtained for the total sample. Even so, 55%
were not getting any guidance or in service formation from the education departments,
compared to basic education as a whole (42%).
These information were given by teachers in the fourth month after the schools
stopped their normal activities: at this point, more than half of the early childhood tea-
chers continued to be left without any training to use digital technologies. The majority
of them reported that they were continuing to work, from home (78%) or at the schools
(5%). Among teachers that were not working with school activities, 9% told they were
interacting with children.
8 M. MALTA CAMPOS AND L. F. VIEIRA

Cell phones were being used by 94% of teachers, notebooks by 61% and computers by
24%. But, as other surveys also found out, these resources had to be shared with other
persons in their houses for 52% of them. Early childhood teachers revealed some frustra-
tion with the use of those virtual kinds of communication: more than 70% of them said
that students did not have access to Internet and 19% told their student’s families were
unable to help children with the proposed activities. For 47% of teachers, children’s par-
ticipation had decreased, while 34% said it had suffered a drastic reduction.
Teachers also reported that at distance teaching from home resulted in overwork: this
perception was higher for other basic education teachers, but 75% of early childhood
education teachers told they spend more hours per day preparing remote lessons, com-
paring to preparing for a classroom normal work (Gestrado 2020).
Overwork happens in a private domestic context, where other reproduction tasks need
to be done, and where rest moments should happen. Gender inequalities bring remote
work consequences that are diverse for men and women: caring for children and older
persons in the family and domestic work is usually the women’s main responsibility at
home. Women teachers have a higher chance of having their private life invaded by
their professional role (Silva and Fisher 2020), a situation aggravated by the pandemic.
Uncertainness about the future, fear of getting sick and loose one’s job and income,
anguish, those were sentiments that teachers tell they are feeling according to some of
the researches on teachers’ mental health and sickness during the pandemic (Instituto
Península 2020; Gestrado 2020).
Feeling emotionally exhausted, ‘worried about keeping themselves and their families
safe, the sensitive management of their own relationship with children at home, sadness
after losing friends and relatives during the pandemic, missing affective interactions with
co-workers, students and friends’, those are many questions that contribute to teachers’
stress (Soldatelli 2020).
All these aspects can be observed in the early childhood teachers’ answers to a group of
pedagogical counsellors from the Contagem Department of Education,12 a municipality
with a population of more than 600 thousand people, next to Belo Horizonte, in the state
of Minas Gerais (Contagem 2020).
At first, the group asked schools to organise discussion groups about the situation they
were experiencing since the schools had closed for children. Answers told about
moments of insecurity, fear, anguish, sense of fragility. These feelings were confirmed
by answers to an online questionnaire by 470 teachers, 40% of all who work in early child-
hood education in Contagem. The majority of them (89%) worked at the municipal
centres, which receive children from ages 1 to 5. Most of their answers show a sense
of insecurity about the possibility of schools being required to reopen before there is a
vaccine for the coronavirus.
… I don’t feel secure about returning to school before we have a vaccine. Early childhood
education is a space of interactions, affection, care and education. Children are still learning
about hygiene, (…) they put their hands inside their mouths, explore the environment,
touch each other, hug, there is no way we can control this. (…) Now it’s a moment we
should value life. (Contagem 2020, 30)

Teachers are professionals who perform a kind of work based on interactions and
relationships. A ‘relation profession’ (Demailly 2008). For those who work with small
 EUROPEAN EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION RESEARCH JOURNAL 9

children, relationships suppose a greater physical proximity between children and adults,
as well as between children themselves. The same proximity the prevention measures of
contamination by coronavirus recommend to avoid.

D. Children’s voices
How are children coping with such drastic changes in their every day life? Specially the
younger children, who are more dependent on adults or older children at home? How
different can be their experiences at different regions, environments, communities,
neighbourhoods, family’ configurations?
During the last decades, Brazilian families have experienced many important changes:
they are smaller than before, with fewer children per household, and there are a growing
percentage of families composed by mother and children. Brazilian Census data shows
that from 1970 to 2010, the traditional family model of father, mother and children
went from 62% in 1970 to 49% of all families in 2010 (Rizotto, França, and Frio 2018,
1). In the metropolitan area of São Paulo, only 36 out of 100 families have this traditional
composition (SEADE 2020, 4). In 2003, 67% of women living with children were in the
work force, as compared with 71% of women without children (Lavinas and Nicoll 2006,
68; 70).
Even in the interior of Bahia, in small towns and rural areas, the ObEI report, based on
data collected from 522 families, found out that the average number of 0–5 years old chil-
dren per family was 1.7. Half of these families receive less than one minimum salary per
month (ObEI 2020b, 8–9). Such findings show how this pattern is also present in more
poor regions, far away from the big cities.
In this context, early childhood education is important for small children to socialise
with other children and adults and spend some time in a different environment, usually
with more resources than at home, engaging in a more diverse kind of activities and
learning stimuli, five days a week, many months per year.
The on going research by ObEI is investigating the children perceptions about the
present situation. They started with the question: ‘What do children want to know
about the pandemic’? They chose some children’s questions to be answered by a biologist
at a sciences programme for children, such as these examples:
– Why corona virus exists? (Artur, 5 years old)

– Why the corona virus closed my school? (Sofia, 4 years old)

– Why do I have to wash my hands all the time? (Jade, 3 years old)

– Why I cannot go to my grandmother Iva’s house? (Emanuelly. 5 years old)

– Why there are no birthday parties? (Cecília, 3 years old)

(ObEI 2020c, 1)

From June through September, they collected narratives from 45 children, 27 girls and 18
boys aged 2–6. After the first narratives arrived, they were posted in the Observatory’s
Instagram and Facebook pages; this stimulated other families to share their own children
narratives. Almost all children live at small towns with less than 50 thousand people; 5 of
them live in the countryside, 2 at ‘quilombo13’ communities. The majority is enrolled at
10 M. MALTA CAMPOS AND L. F. VIEIRA

public schools; 9 go to private ones. Mothers sent their children’s narratives, either by
audios or by written messages (ObEI 2020c, 2–7).
Examples from the 22 children’s narratives collected between June and July show that
children are worried about the disease, they know about the hygiene measures one has to
follow, and miss the school and their friends:
– There is only one medicine for the corona virus: stay at home all the time. (Pedro, 4 years
old)

– What is to be done to kill the corona virus? You have to take water and soap and if it
appears here at town, take water and soap and throw at him. Then we get free. (Lara, 4
years old)

– It’s necessary to do one vaccine to finish with the corona virus and give the injection to all
the small children. (Sofia, 4 years old)

– I wanted to know, teacher, when the pandemic is going to end. I am already finding it bad.
(Gustavo, 5 years old)

– I wanted my friends to be my neighbours. So I could see and talk to them. It’s good to be
with you, mom, but it is boring without them. (Nina, 6 years old)

– It’s very bad to have this corona virus. It’s very boring! (…) But some day I’ll get out and
stroll. I’ll have my friends to play, to get fun, to play with all I want to. (Artur, 5 years old)

(ObEI 2020c, 2–3)

From August to October, the 30 reported messages show how children are experiencing
the length of time spent at home, how they miss their friends, their school, how they are
tired, how some of them show sadness, irritation and frustration, even feeling angry,
speaking of this period. It is important to remember that a four months period represents
a very long time for someone who has lived for only 6 years or less!
– On TV, there are only news about corona virus. I’m already tired of hearing it. (João, 6
years old)

– Mom, did you found out about this vaccine? Because I cannot wait the whole day. (Sofia, 4
years old)

– Mom, is the corona virus only going to finish when you get very old? It’s taking so long for
it to go away. (Maria Isis, 5 years old)

– Why cant I go out anymore? Why am I not going to school? Why I cant go to the park see
the fishes and the pigeons? Why I cant go to mass, to parties? What kind of little animals are
those that take so much time to get out from the streets? Why don’t they get them and lock
them in a cage? (Pietra, 3 years old)

– I miss so much my school, my friends, my teacher. I think it’s only going to have school
after the end of this virus. After everybody has a vaccine. (Alice, 6 years old)

– Do you know what I miss? I miss touching other’s people hand. (Miguel, 4 years old)

(ObEI 2020c, 4–5)

Children from the São Paulo EMEI Jardim Monte Belo also miss very much their school:
they mention the school’s patio and playground, the school meals, playing with their
 EUROPEAN EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION RESEARCH JOURNAL 11

friends, activities like drawing and modelling. Asked about what they would like to do
when returning to school, their answers show how they miss interacting with other chil-
dren and also how they miss their teacher and the school activities:
– Meet the teacher and make paintings. (5 years old girl)

– Do a nice, giant drawing, about science. (5 years old boy)

– To hug my friends and the teachers and play a lot. (4 years old girl)

– I would like to have a party with my classmates and my teacher (…). (5 years old boy)

(EMEI Jardim Monte Belo 2020b, 5–6)

As an article that investigated the perceptions of 154 children aged from 4 to 11, from a
psychological perspective, concludes: ‘the present reality of our children is marked by rel-
evant deprivations, specially liberty.’ (Almeida and Rentes 2020, 52)
This research adopted an interesting approach when asking children about the pan-
demic, using the question ‘ – If you had super powers what would you do to finish
with the corona virus?’ Using a special analysis methodology that is based in the ‘collec-
tive subjects’ conception, they identified four main categories of answers. A few examples
of each are reproduced here. The article does not identify individual answers by the
child’s age or sex.
Category A. Science and research as heroes

“– I would put all of them” (the virus) “in a bowl full of vaccines, for them to become nice.”
(27)

Category B. Family and hygiene habits as a solution

– (…) I would make everybody wash their hands, but I think I would wash all the world
people’s hands, I think I would wash the whole world. (31)

Category C. Fantasy and power of some superheroes

– I would become very small, the size of the virus, and with my superpower of laser eyes I
would finish with all the virus. (36)

Category D. Human characteristics and nature resources

– I would make the sun get very hot, but not burn any people, just to burn the corona virus.
(44)

(Almeida and Rentes 2020)

One of the phrases classified in this last category was by a 5 years old girl, who reacts very
sharply to the question with her sense of reality, mentioning her lack of power to combat
the virus.
– Don’t be a fool, I don’t have any super powers, I am five years old and I am only a girl,
don’t be a fool. (45)

(Almeida and Rentes 2020)

12 M. MALTA CAMPOS AND L. F. VIEIRA

The categories that included a higher proportion of the younger children answers were C
and D. The article summarises its conclusions as follows:
It was noticed that part of the children use fantasy resources in a healthy and symbolic way
to cope with the disease. (…) Identification and aggression processes also appear in some
speeches and this manifestation was (…) interpreted as a healthy and valuable resource
for children’s emotional development (…). (From the English abstract. Almeida and
Rentes 2020, 14)

Most parents consulted by different surveys declare they are afraid to send their chil-
dren – specially the younger ones – to schools. States and municipalities are announ-
cing different plans and measures at different moments and many teachers’ unions
decided to oppose reopening the schools before a vaccine is available. Families con-
sulted by the São Paulo municipal preschool revealed their fears when asked about
it, in August.14
– Children will not keep their masks on and they bring everything to their mouths

– When meeting their small friends they’ll want to kiss and hug them. (…) I will not risk the
old person’s life who lives with us

– My experience with this virus was terrible! I don’t want the same for any one, specially for
a child.

– If I return to work, I’ll have to let my child with my mother, I’ll not bring this risk to my
parents and my son.

(EMEI Jardim Monte Belo 2020b, 3)

Some parents had a different opinion, mostly because they are worried about their chil-
dren’s stress and possible learning losses. As the report summarises, this is a subject very
much discussed by the school community, but without reaching a consensus, due to the
disease unforeseeable consequences (EMEI Jardim Monte Belo 2020b, 4).
It is important to observe that these narratives cannot be considered representative of
the whole under five’s Brazilian population or of their families. There is not information
from the children that are not yet enrolled at schools, a group that has a higher pro-
portion of low income families; even for those who are enrolled at day care centres
and preschools, not all of them are being in touch with schools, and teachers always
mention those families that they cannot reach.

Final words
In Brazil, the serious consequences of the pandemic on small children life conditions are
being aggravated by the lack of a national coordination and support for the public health
and education policies administered by states and municipalities. This refuse to take
responsibility for emergency measures, such as social distancing, expansion of hospital
beds or adoption of remote learning strategies, is limiting the local administrations
options in many ways.
When compared to other Latin American countries, Brazil did not adopted the necess-
ary decisions to improve schools, teachers and students access to Internet and digital
technologies, or to reserve national TV and radio time dedicated to education and
 EUROPEAN EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION RESEARCH JOURNAL 13

preventive health measures, decisions that require to be taken at the national level
(CEPAL/UNESCO 2020 and Ministério de Educación, Argentina 2020).
The pandemic also shed a new light on the extreme social inequality that exists in
Brazil: among social classes, race groups, geographical regions, rural and urban areas.
Communities, families, teachers and children are experiencing life under the pandemic
submitted to very different life conditions, access to information and chances of survival.
This greater visibility of school children life conditions is already changing the way
teachers and families are communicating and sharing their fears and expectations
during these months. Schools will probably be more open to their community needs
after this experience.
Parents are experiencing how to care for children at home, after their school time rou-
tines disruption. Now, school and home’s spaces and times are mixed up; teachers and
parents roles are being shared in new ways.
In this crisis, the role of non-governmental organisations and grassroots social move-
ments became crucial: fighting for emergency measures and assistance to vulnerable
families, preventing serious retrocessions in social and education policies. Being
present in all states and in many municipalities, with the participation of teachers, com-
munity organisations, university researchers, MIEIB has being very active during this
period, as a collective space of support for early childhood education.
This crisis could inspire positive changes in the way society deals with families and
children life conditions, with a new priority reserved for care and education policies.
National governments and international agencies should promote a real expansion of
access to communication technologies, an indispensable condition for the democratisa-
tion of education and social participation from now on. The pandemic time could
become an opportunity to strengthen social solidarity, to share knowledge and experi-
ences: a time for creative resistance (Manifesto, Oct. 2020).

Notes
1. The survey is based on 1516 interviews made by telephone during July 2020 (UNICEF 2020,
2).
2. The 12 municipalities included each state’s capital, 6 sorted out between the 25% municipa-
lities with the largest number of students and 5 from those 25% with students from the
lowest socio economic level in each state (Instituto Ruy Barbosa 2020, 4–5).
3. US Dollar exchange value at October 21th, 2020: 1 US$ = 5.6 BRL.
4. According to national education legislation, Basic Education includes: Early Childhood
Education (ages 0–5), administered by municipalities; Elementary Education (ages 6–14),
administered by municipalities and states, and Secondary Education (ages 15–17) adminis-
tered by states. Early Childhood Education includes day care centres for ages 0–3 and pre-
schools for ages 4–5. Higher Education is the main responsibility of the federal government,
but many states also have their own State Universities.
5. The Fundação Carlos Chagas (FCC) survey used a convenience sampling method, with
questionnaires distributed online and answered by 14,285 basic education teachers
between April 30 and May 10 (FCC/F. Lemann/F. R. Marinho/I. Península/Itaú Social,
2020, 2–5).
6. From the Instituto Península study, based on 7773 online questionnaires for basic education
teachers collected between April 4 and May 14 (FCC/F. Lemann/F. R. Marinho/I. Península/
Itaú Social, 2020, 2–5).
14 M. MALTA CAMPOS AND L. F. VIEIRA

7. ObEI (Childhood and Early Education Observatory) was created in May 2020, to follow up
the educational policies being adopted during the pandemic at two interior regions in the
state of Bahia. It is linked to NEPE – the Nucleus of Studies, Research and Educational
Extension Paulo Freire, a research group certified by CNPq, the National Research
Council of Brazil. It follows research ethical protocols supervised by the University
ethical commissions.
8. São Paulo municipal schools follow legal rules and the Department of Education norms
about the use of children’s images and how to document children’s activities; the EMEI
parents interviewed for this article gave permission for video and audio records of their
narratives.
9. Children answered the online questions with the help of adults at home (EMEI Jardim
Monte Belo 2020b, 1).
10. MIEIB: Brazilian Early Childhood Education Interforuns Movement. A civil society move-
ment, it represents state and municipal forum from all over the country.
11. Gestrado: Group of Studies on Educational Policies and Teaching Work, from the Federal
University of Minas Gerais (UFMG). Gestrado follows the UFMG research ethical protocols.
12. The pedagogical counsellors sent their unpublished report to the Gestrado research group, at
UFMG.
13. ‘Quilombos’ are remote areas occupied by escaped negro slaves in the past.
14. Normally schools reopen in August, after the July winter vacations, for the second semester
of the school year.

Acknowledgements
The authors want to express their gratitude to:
• Amanda Lopes da Silva and colleagues, from EMEI Jardim Monte Belo, a public preschool from
São Paulo, who collected children, mothers and staff opinions and registered their voices
specially for this article.
• Elenice de Brito Teixeira Silva, a researcher at ObEi, a teacher at The State University of Bahia
and a graduate student at the UFMG School of Education PhD Program, and her colleagues from
ObEI, who sent their preliminary unpublished reports from the project Childhood in the Pan-
demic Context: Experiences from children and their families.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

ORCID
Lívia Fraga Vieira http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9036-0151

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