Here I just remembered the episode of the homeless boy because this is when everything starts, in childhood. Childhood is not a time, not an age, not a collection of memoires. Childhood is when it is not yet too late. It is when we are open to get surprised, to let ourselves mesmerized. Almost everything is acquired at this time, when we learn the very sense of Time.

Mia ^{Couto (2011}, p.104).

Early Childhood Education is the time-space for welcoming, since its very beginning, when children are open for getting surprised and mesmerized with the world around them, for getting to know themselves and the others, for broadening their horizons and references. Based on Mia Couto’s statement, almost everything is acquired at this time, and it exceeds the age group 0 to 6 years. Thinking about Early Childhood Education demands turning ones’ sight to children and their infancies, to this extended time “when it is not yet too late”. But thinking about this time of collectively living with other children also demands availability for dialogue, for listening to what is important at this time to learn about Time, itself. If infancy is not an age, not a whole collection of memoires, we, adults, also have the chance to live this time and to likely learn with children about the enchantment and surprise of new discoveries.

The dossier named Challenges of evaluation in and of Early Childhood Education aims at presenting studies and reasoning about the different dimensions of evaluation in, and from, the first stage of Basic Education. Evaluation is a challenge because its goal lies on looking closely at what is done, was done, and about what will be better performed within a time of collective conviviality, “when it is not yet too late”, when we remain available for surprises and enchantment. This time that has been shortened and swallowed by another time that had announced the White Rabbit from Alice’s Wonderland: “Oh Gosh! I must be late!” (^{CARROL, 2002}, p. 6, our translation). He was always running against time, looking at his watch.

The aim of the present dossier is to discuss the evaluation movements; mainly the ones caused by the act of thinking about evaluation inside the institutions, about follow-ups of propositions issued on a daily basis, based on processes experienced by children and adults; about the ones that derive from external sights over institutions and that are commonly linked to educational policies; and, yet, about the ones that get to gather internal and external sights. Each movement is understood as a challenge because it involves reasoning, displacement and changes, since evaluating is not just an act of limiting one to get to know, and to confirm, something, but to make it, to trigger responses and the possibility of new actions, to improve and enhance processes, propositions and policies.

These movements concern several intentions, but it is essential highlighting that the act of evaluating is marked by the axiological, ethical and political position of the appraiser. Evaluation choices are the answers to enquires and, as stated by ^{Bakhtin (2011)}, the duty of each subject to answer to the other person is a responsive, situated act, without alibi. Each human being acts from this unique and singular place. Choices regard this very place, which is formed by the alterity process, in an ideologically marked interlocution time-space. Therefore, by adopting theoretical-methodological references, and their models, parameters, descriptors, among others, the appraiser is setting its position, which is, simultaneously, individual and collective. Evaluating people, institutions or broader educational systems reflects this axiological position taken by subjects, their groups and intentions. The materiality of the evaluation discourse, by embodying different genres, namely: narratives, reports, portfolios, questionnaires, and several other instruments - within the form and content relation, aesthetics, ethics and politics - articulates all these genres to have effect on meanings.

Education, since its very beginning, has been always followed by evaluation; this close relationship is interrelated to the very goal of educating. Paulo Freire, for more than 50 years now, has been encouraging the thinking about an Education free from alienated and alienating masks, an Education that can work as “power for changes and for freedom, not for the man object, but for the man subject” (^{FREIRE, 1982}, p. 36, our translation).

According to ^{Adorno (1995}), education is simultaneously conservation and emancipation. Conservation can be related to emancipation, when it regards the right of all to access cultural, scientific and technological historically built legacies; but it does not always happen. Whenever these legacies become mere goods to be consumed and wire-transferred, banking education (^{FREIRE, 1975}) - without questioning and critical self-reflection -, they can be alienating. Accordingly, Walter ^{Benjamin (1993}, p. 225, our translation) states: “there was never a monument of culture that was not also a monument of barbarie. And, just as culture does not lack barbarie, neither the in culture transmission process lacks it”. But it is not possible thinking about an emancipatory and liberating education without discussing social contradictions, the barbarie of silencing the minorities, the alienating “truths” of the unique history (^{ADICHIE, 2019}), the man object kept on the shades of Market relationships. The inquire by Adorno in the last century, when he thought about education against barbarism, was: “Education, what for?”; this question remains teasing us and it can be extrapolated to evaluation: “Evaluation, what for?”. What are the several propositions of evaluation in and of Early Childhood Education for?

^{Biesta (2012}, p. 823, our translation) warns: “if we are not explicit about our viewpoints concerning the goals and ends of education (…) we take the risk of having statistics and rankings making decisions on our behalf”.

In times like the one we are living now, when consensus built over a more emancipatory, democratic and inclusive Education has been questioned, it is worth highlighting some of the Brazilian improvements in the Early Childhood Education field and pointing out that concern with the quality of the provided Education at early childhood has been the topic of actions taken by the Coordenadoria de Educação Infantil [Early Childhood Education Coordination], also known as COEDI, which has been linked to the Ministério da Educação [Ministry of Education] (MEC) since the 1990s². Besides the legal improvements and Resolutions issued by the Conselho Nacional de Educação [National Education Council] (CNE), several documents resulting from research and debates in the Early Childhood Education field were issued until 2016³. Moreover, teachers’ formation projects, such as Proinfantil (2005), enhancement courses and Specialization Programs in Early Childhood Education Teaching were launched in partnership with public universities. Among them, one finds the Programa Nacional de Reestruturação e Aquisição de Equipamentos para a Rede Escolar Pública de Educação Infantil [National Program to Restructure and Acquire Equipment for the Early Childhood Education Public School Network], also known as Proinfância -Resolution n. 6, From April 24 ( ^BRASIL,2007), among others.

Some debates were incorporated to Leis de Diretrizes e Bases da Educação Nacional [Law of Guidelines and Bases] (LDB), Law n. 9394/96 (^BRASIL,1996), such as the addition of daycare centers to the educational system; Early Childhood Education was set as the first stage of Basic Education - it assists children in the age group 0 to 5 years, without making any distinction between education and care giving at early childhood. It is essential highlighting that, based on Article n. 31 of LDB(^BRASIL,1996), evaluation in Early Childhood Education aims at “following-up and recording children’s development, without any intention of promotion [to later school grades], even to access to Elementary School”. It regards an evaluation linked to the work performed by a certain group and to how each child gets integrally involved in the propositions and develops from it; Article n. 29, in this same law, provides that Early Childhood Education “aims at the integral development of children up to the 5 years old, in their physical, psychological, intellectual and social aspects, by encompassing actions by families and community”.

Such broad educational target of Early Childhood Education has been a challenge triggering reasoning about what is available for children and about how it is achieved, so that they can develop at all aforementioned aspects. Such reasoning regards institutions’ infrastructure, resources and materials, political-pedagogical projects and planning, the organization of times-spaces, the role of - and actions by - teachers, and the relationship with families. Thus, evaluation in Early Childhood Education is related to following-up children’s integral development based on propositions elaborated by the collective of classes and school community over a period.

However, it is worth mentioning the expansion, in 2013, related to provisions in Article 31, of the same law, which provides on “the issuing of documents that allow attesting child development and learning processes”. Formalizing documentation does not mean preparing standardized forms that do not include the definition of the Diretrizes Curriculares Nacionais para a Educação Infantil [National Curriculum Guidelines for Early Childhood Education] — DCNEI (^{BRASIL, 2009}): "the curriculum is a set of practices that seek to articulate the experiences and knowledge of children with the knowledge that is part of the cultural, artistic, environmental, scientific and technological heritage, in order to promote the integral development of children aged 0-5 years old". Besides such a definition, the document reinforces that the center of the educational process is the children, and the axes of the proposals are interactions and play. Therefore, we are faced with the proposal of an emerging curriculum, which emerges, takes effect, and develops in the interactions established by the children.

These definitions imply a pedagogy of relationships and a procedural evaluation oriented to what is proposed in each time-space of interactions and play whose individual dimension - of children’s development follow-up - is intrinsically related to the education context and to its conditions. This evaluation type must comply with DCNEI’s propositions; however, it is not previously provided, since it is performed by teachers based on their observations and records about how each child has experienced what has happened in the institution, in its group-class - this process must also involve children’s participation in it. Several aspects can be observed in this evaluation process - scripts can guide teachers’ sight. Yet, it is possible having many records that will help children’s development follow-up and the reasoning about the pedagogical work performed by them; among them, one finds observation notes, voice and video recordings, drawings, reports and other productions by children. These registrations can compose the list of several documents to be analyzed, depending on their ends. Such ends, in their turn, can trigger exchanges, reasoning, the search for new paths, changes and transformation, by being shared and discussed. Thus, based on its individual dimension, Early Childhood Education evaluation is the record of a contextualized process. This process has retrospective dimension within this teaching process, since it focuses on the taken actions, on the conquers and processes built by children themselves, as well as on the prospective dimension heading towards enhancement and improvement actions, and relationships.

The aforementioned perspectives concern the educational quality of Early Childhood Education, which is a quite complex and polemic matter, because it encompasses value judgements, contradictions and tension in some fields, specific contextual matters, collective negotiations, among others. However, they count on consensus historically and culturally built either at national or international level. Much has been already produced in the infancy and Early Childhood Education scientific field, the Ministry of Education has been issuing documents and recommendations that have been drawing what is seen as educational quality for babies and children at early childhood. Quality has been part of agendas, research and public policy actions for almost three decades.

Therefore, quality in Early Childhood Education is not a mere value judgement, and its search demands insertion in knowledge production in this field, and reasoning about practices, discussions and collective choices, as well as in political struggles to improve the infrastructure and teachers’ work conditions. These factors open room for matters concerning education policies, teachers’ training and, more specifically, practices, school teams, propositions and bets. It is so, because education quality does not only concern factors or teachers’ work, but, actually, the institution as a whole - in other words, teams, children, families, context and its resources.

Somehow, the education quality issue encompasses all documents issued by MEC in the last few years. Documents introduced below regard this topic, namely: “Critérios para um atendimento em creches que respeite os direitos fundamentais das crianças” [Criteria for daycare services that follow the fundamental rights of children] (^{BRASIL, 2009a}), “Parâmetros Nacionais de Qualidade” [National Quality Parameters] (^{BRASIL, 2006a}), “Parâmetros Nacionais de Infraestrutura para as instituições de Educação Infantil [National Infrastructure Parameters for Early Childhood Education Institutions] (^{BRASIL, 2006b}), “Indicadores de Qualidade na Educação Infantil” [Quality Indicators in Early Childhood Education] (^{BRASIL, 2009b}), “Educação Infantil: Subsídios para construção de uma sistemática de avaliação” [Early Childhood Education: Subsidies for the construction of a systematic evaluation] (^{BRASIL, 2012}) and “Contribuições para a Política Nacional: a avaliação em educação infantil a partir da avaliação de contexto” [Contributions to the National Policy: evaluation in Early Childhood Education based on the context evaluation] (^{BRASIL, 2015}). The last three of them approach Early Childhood Education evaluation, with emphasis on institutional evaluation; they provide recommendations for policies, as synthesized below⁴:

The document named “Indicadores de Qualidade na Educação Infantil” [Quality Indicators in Early Childhood Education] is an institutional self-evaluation proposition based on democratic school community participation, which includes teachers, managers, assistants and people from the community. Together, they should reason about the dimensions proposed by the school and develop an improvement action plan. This document, besides pointing out the participatory methodology, introduces seven dimensions, namely: i) institutional planning - points out the intention towards children by highlighting the need of organizing a plan to be shared and discussed; ii) multiplicity of experiences and languages - points out the importance of having propositions focused on broadening children’s experiences and expressions; iii) interactions - are herein understood as the axis of pedagogical propositions, time-space interlocution and production of meaning; iv) health promotion - it takes into account the Early Childhood Education, as a place for attention and basic care giving - which includes overall child well-being, eating habits, sleep, hygiene, among others, as well as the non-separation between education and care; v) spaces, materials and furniture - points out the importance of adjusting the environments and significant experiences; vi) teachers and other professionals’ formation and work conditions - points out the importance of having qualified people to education service, the presence of teachers who think about their own pedagogy for early childhood education, the valorization of these professionals, and of their formation and careers; vii) cooperation and exchange with families - points out dialogue with families’ maintenance and broadening, as part of the pedagogical proposition of each institution. These dimensions are broad, they can be enhanced and unfolded; however, it is important highlighting that this document, besides the methodology and the dimension of the discussions, also brings along an instrument to be used in institutional self-evaluation.

This material, distributed on a large scale among the Brazilian Early Childhood Education institutions, showed that this instrument - together with the methodological proposal about the different segments of the school community and their perspectives - has the potential to enable a more general analysis of the quality of the educational offer in institutions, and the collective search for improvement.

The document “Educação Infantil: Subsídios para construção de uma sistemática de avaliação” [Early Childhood Education: Subsidies for the construction of a systematic evaluation], was issued by the team gathered by MEC/SEB Ordinance n. 1.147/2011, which aimed at subsidizing Early Childhood Education inclusion in the National Evaluation Policy, based on the specificities of the education provided to children up to 5 years old. This document introduces the propositions for the Early Childhood Education evaluation guidelines to be adopted as national public policy. This policy must comply with the ends and features of education provided to children in the age group 0 to 5 years old, which must be democratic, participatory, broad, among others. It should deepen the knowledge about functioning conditions and practices in course, in Early Childhood Education institutions. A commission has sought dialogue between experts in the Early Childhood Education field and evaluation experts of the Instituto Nacional de Estudos e Pesquisas Educacionais Anísio Texeira [National Institute of Educational Studies and Research Anísio Texeira] (INEP) - MEC department in charge of large-scale evaluations and for the School Census -, so they can think about the aforementioned insertion, as a team. This dialogue had already started, but with the unfolding of policies, crises and changes in government, this working group did not continue.

The “Contribuições para a Política Nacional: a avaliação em educação infantil a partir da avaliação de contexto” [Contributions to the National Policy: evaluation in Early Childhood Education based on context evaluation] is the document seeking dialogue with the national Early Childhood Education evaluation policy, based on contributions from the project “Formation of the Early Childhood Education Network: Evaluation Context”, which was coordinated by Universidade Federal do Paraná (UFPR). This project counted on the partnership among MEC, Brazilian universities - Universidade Federal do Paraná (UFPR), Universidade estadual de Santa Catarina (UDESC), Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG) and Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) - and Università degli Studi di Pavi (Italy). It carried out a research in Brazilian schools, along with Italian researchers, about the evaluation context methodology. This methodology links participants’ self-evaluation to the external evaluation of al facilitators/qualifier, based on using an instrument supported by previously discussed and well-defined evaluation criteria. It concerns a participatory and qualifying approach formed by the school team, it is substantiated by viewpoint confrontations with the facilitator/ qualifier, to prospect future, by having in mind “why something is done and how it is done” and “how could it be better performed”. Research results have evidenced the methodology’s potential and the possibility of thinking about a democratic evaluation process committed to the formation of Early Childhood Education professionals, to the higher quality of the provided education and to copping with education inequalities.

These three documents highlight that Early Childhood Education evaluation, which is related to external evaluation - differently from the large-scale evaluation developed for other education stages -, need to be associated with the quality of the provided education, rather than with competences, skills or with children’s performance. They bring along arguments supported by national and international studies, and research that have pointed out methodologies and introduced recommendations for the elaboration of indicators to be adopted by the Política Nacional de Avaliação prevista no Plano Nacional de Educação [National Evaluation Policy provided by the National Education Plan] — PNE (^{BRASIL, 2014}), by having in mind the 1.6 strategy, by Meta 1 (Target 1).

This target defines the Early Childhood Education evaluation to be carried out every two years; it must be based on “national quality parameters, in order to measure physical infrastructure, personnel, management conditions, pedagogical resources, accessibility situation, among other relevant indicators”. However, such an understanding, according to which, the insertion of the first stage of Basic Education in the National Evaluation Policy is quite specific, is substantiated by criteria capable of evaluating the education-giving conditions, rather than the children, although it is provided by PNE law and linked to other mandatory documents, such as DCNEI and the Base Nacional Comum Curricular [Common National Curriculum Base], also known as BNCC (^BRASIL,2017). Despite the efforts invested in it, BNCC has been suffering with pressure from other national and international groups, whose understanding about the meaning of Early Childhood Education is different from that of the trajectory designed based on field observations, and on documents issued by MEC for Early Childhood Education, so far. When it comes to pre-school, which comprises children in the age group 4-5 years old- and is mandatory -, one finds dispute about positions in the policies and practices; children’s evaluation is part of the agenda surrounding such dispute.

Based on INEP’s website, back in 2019, due to Novo Sistema de Avaliação da Educação Básica [New Basic Education Evaluation System] (SAEB), which was adjusted to BNCC, one could witness the rise of the Early Childhood Education evaluation “at pilot project time focused on the application of electronic questionnaires just for teachers and school principals. Municipals and state secretaries also answered the electronic questionnaires, later on” (BRASIL, 2019a, our translation). Although no reports about the pilot-study was published, it proposed that evaluation has been, and was, carried out based on contextual data. However, based on the matrix where INEP introduced the New SAEB - in column “Items’ formation” -, one can see the BNCC either for daycare and pre-school, or for the second year of elementary school. Therefore, one could argue: besides the pilot-study, what would the column about item formulations be indicating?

The answer may be found in Ordinance no. 458/2020 ( ^{BRASIL, 2020}), of the Ministry of Education, which institutes complementary rules for compliance with the National Evaluation Policy and establishes that the SAEB "will be carried out annually, with a census character, with the objective of assessing the domain of competences and the skills expected throughout basic education, in accordance with the Common National Curriculum Base - BNCC and the corresponding national curriculum guidelines” (^{BRASIL, 2020}, our translation). As there is no mention of the specifics of Early Childhood Education, the evaluation of children is implicit.

According to ^{Bakhtin (2006}), centripetal forces and centralization of unification act in the discursive arena, they tend to consensus; centrifugal forces, in their turn, tend to dispersion and dissent. Nowadays, the dispersed forces - which were moving opposite to the very core of what has been conquered - are now taking a different move in order to seek hegemony. Among their positions, one finds preparatory pre-school assumptions focused on Elementary School. However, this is only one of the factors associated with a project of education and society. This project is not new, but it has been gaining layers that are sometimes thicker, sometimes subtle, that, based on conservative moves aligned to neoliberal projects, turn people and relationships into “things”, and seek to turn schools into places to form the man object (^FREIRE,1975), who is productive, efficient, competitive, ready to fulfil the immediate demands of the Market and for personal entrepreneurship. This education aims at shortening the “non-productive” time of childhood and at measuring the economic investments made in it, since the first stage of education.

Early Childhood Education gained relevance mainly in the last few years, when studies carried out in different scientific fields have evidenced the importance of early childhood. PNE targets - universalizing pre-school until 2016 and enrolling 50% of children in the age group 0 to 3 years old in daycare center, by 2024 - allowed significant increase in enrollments in Early Childhood Education institutions; consequently, there was public “expense” with this sector. Measuring its effects becomes a goal and, based on a perspective focused on individualism and meritocracy, the ‘outcomes” - far from concerning the collective, access to culture, well-being and children’s inclusion - reflect on the individual. The most immediate, objective and “effective” way of taking measurements lies on testing children about their performance in specific skills, mainly in contents related to literacy and mathematical knowledge, or - by using terms of the National Literacy Policy (^{BRASIL, 2019b}) - in competences and skills associated with phonics instruction, literacy and numeracy. Accordingly, it is easy to conclude that national and international⁵ tests will be applied to measure the investment in children’s skills, to compare results and even to rank schools, municipalities, states and countries.

This political move taken by centripetal and centrifugal forces, and their arrangements, trigger tension, dispute and resistance. Now, in 2021, the Call by the National Program of Didactic Book and Material - PNLD/2022 for Early Childhood Education aimed at distributing three objects to public Early Childhood Education schools, and to their affiliates: 1) Didactic books to students, teachers and pre-school managers; 2) literature books to students and Early Childhood Education teachers; 3) pedagogical books for literacy preparation based on evidence. It is quite clear that the distribution of didactic books to pre-school and of pedagogical books for literacy preparation aims at establishing standardized contents, at homogenizing education practices and at having objective elements to elaborate descriptors and to formulate items to evaluate children; these points are not objectively provided by CE. Despite the resistance, because municipalities could adhere to the program, or not - and some made the option not to follow it -, Early Childhood Education inclusion in the National Literacy Policy has been representing significant deviation in the education field, since it goes against the legal and mandatory documents regulating Early Childhood Education.

Thus, there are several challenges to be coped with when it comes to evaluation in Early Childhood Education; they present themselves in specific shapes at each historical time and in each social group. The present dossier gathers articles and several evaluation movements, and their axiological theoretical-methodological assumptions, in order to provide research results aimed at broadening the reflections about them by facing some challenges and by creating new ones.

The article Symbolic-play and formative assessment of the child: SVALSI, by Donatella Savio and Anna Bondioli, did not translate the word ‘assessment’. It was done to differentiate such a word from ‘evaluation’, which refers to evaluating based on a more quantitative and measurement sense. This article starts from assumptions that the assessment of child behaviors is taken in its formative sense, rather than in its diagnostic and intellectual sense. It brings along the introduction of the Evaluation Scale of Playful-Symbolic Skills in Childhood, also known as SVALSI, which is an observation and evaluation instrument of the symbolic game played by children in the age group 2 to 5 years. This game is substantiated by an extensive literature about the relevance of playful-symbolic behaviors for children’s well-being and growth. The aim of this scale is educational and its use is justified by the need of understanding the essential need of teachers to have the opportunity to evaluate the quality of games played by children in order to support their full development. This instrument brings along elements to help identifying the proximal development zones of each child in children’s groups when it comes to playing, so that teachers can find ways to act in this zones and trigger transformations in them. Throughout the discussion, besides the instrument’s structure, one also finds a brief summary of research that have followed its publication and validated its use. Based on this proposition, evaluation is a double formative move to teachers, who use it to theoretically support their observations and interventions in children; and to children, through teachers’ actions towards broadening the development of their playful-symbolic behaviors.

The article by Elena Mignosin, named Participatory evaluation and continuity in zero-six educational services: a research-intervention in a district of the city of Palermo, introduces the trajectory of a research about the construction of a likely zero-six discipline matrix. The research lasted two and a half years, it was carried out with a group of state teachers and with a group of teachers from a municipal daycare center; all in the same neighborhood, namely: the historical zone district in Palermo City, Italy. It is important highlighting that Legislative Decree n. 65, from April 13, 2017 (^ITALY,2017) provided on integration between daycare centers (nido) and pre-school (scuola dell’infanzia) to allow continuity in children’s education trajectory. Thus, the discipline matrix issue emerges as one more, among other issues, brought along by the new standard. This study used the context evaluation methodology to understand the context based on an ecological and systemic dimension, as well as took participation and formation as the very principles of this evaluation, according to which the researcher plays essential role in the process to reason about, and form, school teams. The article introduces an in-depth study about the adopted methodology to lead to changing actions heading towards continuity between daycare and pre-school; it focuses on participants’ active involvement through reflexive self-evaluation and teamwork. The trajectory taken by this study points out and problematizes the continuity and discontinuity fields between daycare and pre-school. Accordingly, the context evaluation, which gathers the researcher/ qualifier external sight and teachers’ internal views, presents a formative movement that includes either the researcher/qualifier or the investigated school teams within a process aimed at either individual or collection transformation.

Wagner dos Santos, in his article (Re)creating spaces and sharing knowledge: Evidential Evaluation as a central axis of pedagogical work of Physical Education in Early Childhood Education, Maciel Barcelos e Wagner dos Santos analyze the indicative evaluation used in Sports classes for Early Childhood Education. The article addresses indicative evaluation as the action-reflection-action process that allows awareness awakening about “what is done, what is learnt and what is done with what is learnt”, as well as that potentiates formative process analyses. The research was carried out with a sports teacher and with 17 children from a Municipal Early Childhood Education Unity in Vila Velha - Espírito Santo State. Research material comprised imagery narratives by teacher Lucas and the children (drawings, pictures and video-recordings). These narratives sought meanings given to learning based on the perspective of “what they have done with what they have learnt”. Children’s records of verbal narratives were used to (re)create the learning context and to highlight their “consumption and appropriation”. The results have evidenced the potential of the indicative evaluation within the assessed scenario by gathering the evaluation practices and the child narratives in order to put the formative trajectory in the mainstream. The study is justified by the gap in research about evaluation practices adopted by sports teachers in Early Childhood Education, rather than just by the development of an indicative evaluation theory.

The evaluation movement in this research takes place through the dialogical relationship between sports teacher and children in their reports and productions, as well as through the importance given to children’s participation in the evaluation process.

The article Assessment processes and teaching in Early Childhood Education: daily dialogues by Maria Teresa Esteban and Virginia Louzada, aimed at reasoning about the power of the teacher/children relationship in the composition of evaluation practices that, actually, impairs their classification dimension and connects them to teachers’ formation. The investigation is carried out in the theoretical-methodological field based on daily life events. It introduces a literature review about evaluation and Early Childhood Education to highlight the centrality of dialogical, reflexive, investigative and participatory dimensions of evaluation, based on reinforcing either the importance of teachers’ actions in the work’s creation and referring, or in children’s presence in the evaluation process. Based on this study’s perspective, evaluation in daily practices aims at understanding child learning processes, the organization of teachers’ actions and the recommendation of topics that are relevant for teachers’ continuous formation as activity connected to school actions.

The evaluation movement in this article also takes place in the dialogical process between teachers and children, a fact that points out the power of child participation in evaluation.

Carolina Faria Alvarenga and Cláudia Pereira Vianna, in their article Evaluation, gender and quality in Early Childhood Education: concepts in dispute draw the background of the process to consolidate the debate among evaluation, quality and gender in public policies focused on Early Childhood Education. It was done in order to discuss how the gender category insertion process happened as part of the quality dimensions of Early Childhood Education Quality in São Paulo State, which is an institutional participatory self-evaluation instrument. The authors highlight the participation of women-teachers that used to share theoretical concepts about childhood and Early Childhood Education, based on the profile of this qualitative evaluation policy. These concepts add the gender dimension to the race issues’ dimension. The group of women-teachers in charge of building this specific dimensions, the so-called “guardians of the matter”, designed the gender and ethnic-racial differences and inequalities. Such addition brings along important challenges for the necessary thinking about, and intersection between, gender evaluation and quality in Early Childhood Education. The evaluation movement in this article takes place in the addition of the gender dimension to the Quality Indicators of Early Childhood Education in São Paulo State that, in its turn, triggers new evaluation movements, because it is given as institutional self-evaluation instrument.

The article The quality of Fortaleza's state-aided private childcare centers under focus by Silvia Helena Vieira Cruz and Rosimeire Costa de Andrade Cruz and Ana Paula Cordeiro addresses the quality of education provided in 94 affiliate daycare centers in Fortaleza City, Ceará State. The first stage of their investigation aimed at gathering overall data about the functioning conditions (infrastructure, toys, teachers’ training, among others) of 54 daycare centers; the second stage of it sought to increase knowledge about daycare centers, based on attention, mainly on pedagogical practices developed in 16 daycare centers regarding experiences and language in playful contexts; times, spaces and materials; children’s involvement and teachers’ commitment. The methodology counted on observations carried out in the daycare centers based on specific scrips, and on interviews. Results recorded for either functioning conditions or for the pedagogical practices have evidenced great challenges yet to be faced. Given the lack of consensual quality in documents ruling this field, the researchers recommend canceling the affiliations as strategy to fulfil the demand for daycare centers. As long as these practices remain in place, it is urgent having higher public investment in affiliated daycare centers in order to ensure children’s right to a high-quality education.

The evaluation movement in affiliate daycare centers in this article takes place by aligning overall data gathering to observations based on a preset script.

In the text: Evaluation processes in Early Childhood Education: production of the child and of childhood at risk, Taciana Uecker and Leandra Bôer Possa propose to think about the processes of evaluation in Early Childhood Education institutions based on the analysis of pedagogical reports written by teachers. Using Foucault's studies as a theoretical framework, with the concepts-tools norm and gradient of normality/normalization, they observe how much the ways in which the teaching options for recording children and knowledge and norms of behavior and values legitimize a certain way of being child and type of childhood. The analyzes indicate that the enunciative practices and knowledge in Early Childhood Education’s institution work to manufacture the subject-child: the normal child, the child who deviates, the child at risk, the child who needs to be adjusted.

In this text, the movement is of meta-evaluation of reports, made from the analysis of the speeches that are produced in them. Fundamental movement to reflect on the ethical-political dimension present in the choices, both in form and content, of what it says about children.

Cláudia Oliveira Pimenta, Maria Luiza Rodrigues Flores and Sandra Zákia Sousa, in their article Dimensions for analysis of evaluation proposals of Early Childhood Education policies introduce aspects and dimensions for the analysis of Early Childhood Education evaluation policies within the teaching systems and network scope. The article is supported by the legislation and by standards in place in the country. It points out propositions resulting from the screening and interpretation of scientific productions about the topic that are linked to those concerning the requirements for the elaboration and implementation of evaluation processes. It assesses the evaluation proposition based on what was produced in this field between 2012 and 2019, and focuses on elements that are taken as analysis objects of an evaluation design aimed at promoting quality, with equity. It must be done from suggestions about aspects and dimensions focused on mainly substantiating the analysis of municipal Early Childhood Education evaluation initiatives. Results in this study have confirmed the parameters to support Early Childhood Education evaluation processes; they head towards matters concerning access, inputs, processes and outcomes by highlighting the importance of taking into account the specificities of each stage, the ends of evaluation and the consequences of its outcomes.

The evaluation movement in this article is observed in the teaching systems and networks scope; in other words, in evaluating evaluation. According to such a movement, the concepts of right and quality are understood in a symbiotic way, aspects like i) the configuration and range of rights and benefits; ii) the configuration of financing and expenses; and iii) the configuration of management and participation processes, are related to Early Childhood Education evaluation dimensions.

The aforementioned different evaluation movements head towards the very core of the herein assessed topic: the quality of Early Childhood Education provided for children. Right and quality are entangled, but evaluation processes can open the paths to improve the provided education. Thus, one must ask: Early Childhood Education, what for? If almost everything is acquired at childhood, “when it is not yet too late”, what are the opportunities provided to children in order for them to live this time of leaning about Time itself? What can evaluation movements of, and in, Early Childhood Education do to cope with educational inequalities?