Day-care centres in Portugal (1974-2023): conceptions of children, education, and care

Abstract

Understanding education as a universally recognised right and a public good makes it relevant to explore its relation to children under the age of 3 in democratic Portugal and to debate the roles attributed to day-care centres, considering the interdependence between care and education. Grounded in the fields of educational sciences and the sociologies of childhood, family, and education, the aim of this study is to achieve these objectives by analysing five key legislative documents structuring social policies related to day-care — Normative Dispatch 131/84; Normative Dispatch 99/89; Order 262/2011; Order 271/2020; and Order 190-A/2023. The objectives are to identify conceptions of childhood, care, and education; to understand their continuities, changes, and tensions; and to problematise the social and/or educational response they propose. The findings highlight the predominance of a social policy that, despite some advancements and regressions over the period, primarily aims to serve working families, with early conceptions of day-care focusing on custodial and caregiving functions (Portugal, 1984, 1989). Later, a series of international and national recommendations reflected a shift towards viewing day-care as a socio-educational response, where children gained a degree of centrality rather than merely serving families (Portugal, 2011, 2020). However, there is now a perceived educational regression (Portugal, 2023). The presence of ambiguities, tensions, and contradictions in the conceptions of day-care, care, and education thus opens space for debating the dichotomy between care and education, intending to improve its quality and promote justice and equity in the lives of children and adults.