1 Introduction

This study aims to analyze the initial training for early childhood education considering the training profile of professors who work in profissional, scientific and technological education (PTE) at Federal Institutes (commonly known as IFs), in Pedagogy on-site courses. The analysis arisen from the doctoral study¹, in progress, focused on the context of the legislation that leads the training policies (^{BRASIL, 2015}, ²⁰¹⁹). As a justification, it is worth highlighting the scarcity of studies focused on the articulation of the initial training in Pedagogy course with the demands of professional practices in early childhood education in the context of IFs (^{CÔCO; BIANCH, 2020}). In the various actors who are part of this articulation, the focus was to know the trainers’ training, in other words, of the professors working in Pedagogy courses, paying close attention to early childhood education.

The study is divided into six topics, including this introduction. The second synthesizes a contextualization, considering the Pedagogy courses at IFs and Brazilian regulations. The third shows theoretical-methodological assumptions concerning the professors’ training profiles. The fourth and fifth topics gather analysis of documentary material about the formation of Pedagogy courses professors in IFs. The closing remarks weave the main syntheses produced by data crossing and the raised reflections.

2 Context of the research

Understanding the research in human sciences in the light of the Bakhtinian (^{BAKHTIN, 2011}) perspective implies examining the focus of the study in its dialogical web, in other words, considering the emergency of different sayings. In this sense, studying professors’ training, especially for the early education fields in the context of IFs, implies considering as constituents of the thematic web: the educational institutions, which includes the ways of developing the training courses; the laws that regulate the training policies, the literature concerning the theme, that urge the debates and the implied subjects, who move the communicability of this topic.

Thus, in terms of context, it is worth highlighting that Pedagogy is among the five graduations with the highest enrollment numbers, according to data at Nilo Peçanha Platform² behind Mathematics, Chemistry, Biological Sciences, and Physics, in this order. This picture follows the one established by the inauguration law of the IFs (^{BRASIL, 2008}), which defines the degrees offered “[...] mainly in the areas of science and mathematics”. This means that being in the position immediately after the priority areas established by law in these institutions demands the positioning of Pedagogy in the institutional dialogue, especially in relation to the presence of the area of early childhood education as part of the course.

Besides that, in the light of the understanding that human acts take place in a "[...] dialogical context of their time" (^{BAKHTIN, 2011}, p. 334), we consider it relevant to pay attention to the current law. Thus, it was possible to observe that the transformations in the policies of provision of functional staff established by the Law of Directives and Bases of National Education (LDBEN) number 9.394/1996 (^{BRASIL, 1996}) had an impact on the National Curriculum Guidelines for Early Childhood Education (^{BRASIL, 2010}). More recently, the National Common Curricular Base (BNCC) (^{BRASIL, 2017}) brought new elements to the organization of basic education and teacher training (^{BRASIL, 2019}). Concerning those two laws, it was possible to identify the fostering of technical education, sometimes with a mischaracterization of teaching, which mobilized institutions from the field of education as resistance to these last laws (^{ANFOPE, 2019}; ^{ANPED, 2019}).

From the confrontations that mark the discussions about training, debates about the curricularization of extension emerge, from the promulgation of Resolution CNE/CES no. 7/2018 (^{BRASIL, 2018})³. This change has an impact not only on the organization of the course and the everyday teaching work but also on the relationship between universities and society, especially concerning teacher training.

Furthermore, following the goal of considering the debates that collate legal documents with the training dynamics, though is not possible to detail a review of the literature on the limits of this study, it is worth noting that the studies concerning early childhood education problematize the low workload of Pedagogy courses dedicated to training to work with young children, whose specificities need to be prioritized (^{ALBUQUERQUE; ROCHA; BUSS-SIMÃO, 2018}; ^{KISHIMOTO, 2005}).

Concerning the particularities of the professors’ training processes, it is important to resume the research of ^{Barbosa and Gorbatto (2019)}, which raised data from the Lattes curricula of professors of three undergraduate courses at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS): Pedagogy, Mathematics, and Letters. In this study, among the 147 professors of the Pedagogy course, 36 are pedagogues and 19 mentioned works or projects with basic education in their curricula, unlike the Mathematics course, in which 90% of the professors studied undergraduate courses in the area, and Letters, in which five studied another undergraduate course not consistent with the course (^{BARBOSA; GORBATTO, 2019}). Still concerning this topic, it is worth highlighting the research by ^{Guimarães and Costa (2022}, p. 3), which determined the importance of teaching internships for graduate and undergraduate students, since this experience enhances "[...] the re-signification of experiences and the construction of new knowledge in the field of University Pedagogy''.

In the interlocution with these debates, the attention on the studies about the teaching of PTE (^{PENA, 2014}), this study consulted research about degree courses at IFs, which determined the percentage of only 42,25% of IF professors as having a degree (^{MARTINS et al., 2017}). In this movement, we highlight the specificity of the offered degrees, since IFs have a history liked to professional education, and are intertwined with the institutional mission of professionalization of the country, besides being associated with the Ministry of Education through the Department of Professional and Technological Education (Setec) (^{LIMA; SILVA, 2014}, p. 4). This also demands dialogue with the law about the entry of professors into the IFs' careers and about the organization of the Education area, which mobilizes the theoretical and methodological assumptions, as presented below.

3 Theoretical and methodological assumptions of the research

Having a qualitative approach (^{GROULX, 2012}) of exploratory type, this research focuses on the complexity of teachers training and integrates quantitative data, valuing the crossing of information (^{GATTI, 2004}). Anchored by Bakhtinian theoretical and methodological references (^{BAKHTIN, 2009}, 2011), it produces data about teacher training in the Pedagogy courses of the Professional, Scientific and Technological Education Network in two steps.

The first was a consultation of the Pedagogical Course Plans (PCPs) which maps the connection of the professors who work in the in-class Pedagogy courses of the IFs⁴. In the second step, we analyzed the Lattes curricula of 532 professors working in the Pedagogy courses in the IFs⁵.

For the feasibility of this study, we followed the ethical protocols necessary for investigations involving subjects and the participant institutions⁶. The access to documents was via public data produced by the professors themselves. Due to our theoretical-epistemological framework, it was possible to assume that there are different possibilities of dialogue with others in the research (^{AMORIM, 2004}), for this reason, the study concerning the training profile of the participants is detailed in the following section.

4 Pedagogy professors’ formation and the education area in IFs

In epistemological terms, Pedagogy and Education, as areas of knowledge, include interdisciplinary knowledge in which, when assembling different sciences, it is possible to observe different contributions and clashes. The data at the Nilo Peçanha Platform indicates that 66 courses are offered by the network, both on-site and remotely. Our research accounted a total of 27 on-site courses, ignoring the remote ones due to the specificity of this modality. Thus, it is worth celebrating the strengthening of graduations in the context of IFs, since the survey by ^{Oliveira B. and Oliveira M. (2016)} counted only seven Pedagogy courses back in 2014.

Defending a proper knowledge of education (^{SAVIANI, 2007}), though degree courses are considered the “odd out” in these institutions (^{PANSARDI, 2013}), we highlight that Pedagogy cannot be thought part of professional education, since there are always pedagogical actions inside the spaces to teach professionals, technicians, and technologists even in university courses in the technology area. Even so, degree courses are considered to have lower prestige despite the efforts for the social valorization of the teaching work. Besides that, we determined that there is not a range of degrees as well as of order courses, such as on the national catalog of higher education courses in Technology and technical courses elaborated by Setec/Ministry of Education (MEC).

At this juncture, the inclusion of Pedagogy and other degree courses in IFs incites the dialogue with the technical area, once the dialogue is on the nature of life and human thought (^{BAKHTIN, 2002}), having an impact on the configuration of the institutions. In this framework, it is worth highlighting that these dynamics also add new experiences to the professors’ formative paths, whether as a result of entering the field of Education, also interacting (although indirectly) with courses in the technical field. There is an arena for the movement of meanings that has the potential to mobilize knowledge, practices, and discussions related to education in spaces that once belonged mostly to technical and technological areas.

In the understanding of the concept of teaching (^{PINI, 2010}), educational data indicate a large⁷ yet fragmented profession with many syndicates and representations due to the heterogeneity of performance. In this understanding, it is worth highlighting a particularity of IFs concerning the professors’ performances in different educational levels at the same time, though the Pedagogy course does not fit in the performance of the High School level, not even in technical courses⁸.

Since the institution is multicampi, it is legally required that professors work in more than one course aiming to “[...] promote the integration and verticalization of basic education to professional education and higher education, optimizing the physical infrastructure, the staff, and management resources” (^{BRASIL, 2008}). In addition, the entry to teaching in this context is through a public tender, in a different career from that of higher education in universities. Graduation is the minimum requirement of the tendering board of the public tenders of IFs, differently from universities that may demand a post-graduation and specific disciplinary area (^{BRASIL, 2012}). Thus, concerning this issue, there is a considerable number of professionals who teach in Pedagogy courses without having studied in this area or sometimes having different professional paths.

Considering the organization of the courses, the subject distribution is usually made by professors themselves on each campus, since the public tenders are not directed to specificities. It is also worth highlighting that the category is called Professors of Basic, Technical and Technological Education (BTTE), without including higher education, graduation, education, and its specificities. This called attention to the commitment of the institutions to the teachers training and the specificity of the training of educators in the professional field.

Given these considerations and the reference literature, we considered that the learning processes of teaching take place in different moments, both in initial and continuous training. ^{Nóvoa (2017}, p. 1111, authors’ emphasis) defends that “[...] the teachers’ professional training [...] must have as its matrix the formation for a profession”. There is, therefore, the complexity of teacher education in the challenge of interconnecting the school of basic education with initial training. Having made these reflections, the next topic will present the data produced by the present research, aiming to answer the central study question, paying attention to the indicators of initial training.

5 Results of the survey on the training of professors of the courses

In the investigation about the bond of the professors with the Institutes, made through the information on PCPs and Lattes curricula, we excluded from the corpus the data of ten professionals who no longer worked in the institution after checking. Thus, for the analysis of the Lattes curricula, we considered the 532 that are still active. From this group, 72 had more than one graduation, a percentage of 43,11%. Out of the total number of professionals, 167 are graduated in Pedagogy, a total of 31,39%, being, therefore, the most prominent degree. It is possible to notice the predominance of undergraduate degrees: Pedagogy (167), Languages (78), History (41), Arts (39), Mathematics (34), Philosophy (33), Social Sciences (32), Physical Education (28), Geography (25), Biological Sciences (22), and Physics (16).

The areas of technology, informatics, and computing - highly valued in the institution - are connected to the teaching processes, which differ from the reality of faculties and universities organized in centers and departments. Data showed 21 professors graduated in those areas, which reverberates in the offer of more technology-related subjects. There are also graduations that are not part of the traditional universe of degrees, in a lower number, identified through the curricula⁹. It was possible to observe that IFs gather professionals who bring a diverse training repertoire. Concerning the low number of professors graduated in Pedagogy, it is worth remembering that ^{Nóvoa (2017)} mentions the case of Brazil, with the history of the teaching profession, which is diluted into several professional profiles. Thus, the different fields for pedagogues, sometimes, induce the training for other paths rather than the professional teaching practice. This shows the reason why Pedagogy courses have 31,39% of professors graduated in Pedagogy, despite their diverse initial training, which requires attention given the centrality of those institutions, which implies ways of existing and of doing education with distinct educational and social purposes.

To focus on the interaction of Pedagogy with the area of technology, we turn to ^{Bakhtin (2011)} by affirming that the frontiers between one’s and the other’s words are fluid, and those are where the dialogical clashes happen. Therefore, it is possible to notice that the dialogues on this complex relation between areas, implying in an institutional context, express a web that can mobilize many - and distinct - interactive processes. In the different connections, we are especially interested in considering the theme of early childhood education.

The analysis of the IFs professors’ training profile, the number of professors according to the Higher Education Census, along with the Federal Centers of Technological Education (Cefets) is 26.072 (^{INEP, 2021}). The report also reveals that 13% of the professors in these institutions have studied up to a specialization; 45.8% up to a master's degree; and 41.2% up to a doctoral (^{INEP, 2021}). “In terms of level of education, PhD predominates only in public universities. In other academic organizations, either public or private, the master’s degree predominates” (^{INEP, 2021}, p. 61).

By comparing those data to the current study, it was possible to identify that, of the total of 532 professors, 360 have a specialization, a percentage of 67,66%. Besides that, 507 curricula have a register of master’s degree, 95,3% total. Among these, 184 are in Education (34,58%). When comparing this number to the ones from Cefets, where 45,8% of the professors have a master’s degree, it is noticeable that the professors of Pedagogy courses study for more years, with a total of 95,3% with a master’s degree. This discrepancy probably arises from the particularity for hiring: it is possible that, for technical and technological areas, professors with less years of study are selected; and, when considering higher education, there are professors with higher degrees.

Besides the 184 masters in Education, other 40 are masters in “Mathematical Education”, “Education in Sciences”, among other master’s degrees that also include the word “Education” on the name. It is worth highlighting that the emphasis included in the law to the areas of Sciences and Mathematics (^{BRASIL, 2008}) coexist with the areas identified on the master’s degree level. From the master’s degrees registered on the curricula of the 532 professors, applying the filter “Education”, we found: Education in Sciences and Mathematics (12), Education in Sciences (5), Physical Education (5), Agricultural Education (4), Environmental Education (3), Scientific and Technological Education (3), Education and Culture (2), Mathematical Education (2). The others with one register only are: Education Sciences, Basic Education Teaching, Inclusive Education, Education, Arts and Culture teaching. There are also three professors who are masters in “Scientific and Technological Education”, despite the low number compared to the sample that is part of the research, indicating attention to the needs of the area, as highlighted by a previous research concerning the training of professors of PTE (^{OLIVEIRA, B.; OLIVEIRA, M., 2016}).

Concerning doctoral degrees, 365 (68,60%) have concluded or were taking this level at the time of this research. From this amount, 115 professors registered that their programs as being linked with the area of Education, representing 21,61%. This smaller percentage in registered doctoral students in Education, considering how important this area is to Pedagogy, especially if observed the investments in research and formation of researchers and the diversity of doctoral in course¹⁰, reinforces the need for investment in continuous education for those professors. Still concerning the doctoral, besides the 115, other 29 registers mention “education” along with other words, among which 11 repeat the words “Sciences” and “Mathematics”. Besides this aspect, it is worth emphasizing that Scientific and Technological Education also has a great impact with four professors in the area. In this study, it is worth praising that the total number of professors with those titles in Pedagogy courses exceeds the data of the Higher Education Census, which registered 41,2% of the IFs and Cefets professors.

Concerning the teacher training of the courses included in the study, despite surpassing the number of specialists, masters, and PhDs, on the comparison with data of all the professors in the network, the majority still specializes in areas other than Education, which may indicate a low investment for the professional exercise of teaching. As indicated by ^{Gatti et al. (2019)}, in the group of Pedagogy courses, it is possible to observe a generic training that does not meet the real demands of educational practices. Besides that considering a panoramic of formative profiles, the composition of the teaching staff does not highlight teaching in early childhood education.

Overall, it is important to consider that the performance in teacher training, paying attention to the formative processes experienced by the professors, includes the relationship with basic education, since it is a condition for the fulfillment of the staff. About this, it is worth reflecting that:

[...] from the assumption that the relation of school with basic education is important in the process of teacher training in Pedagogy courses, also understands that the link to be established between the training courses and the basic school is primarily articulated by the trainer, the teacher of the course. The knowledge part of teaching and the specificities of pedagogical action to be presented on the teacher training must have as inspiration/focus the school itself. The main articulator between the university and the basic school is the teacher of the course, that is, in some way, its mediator. (^{SCHNEIDER, 2014}, p. 112, was translated).

Therefore, aligned to this relevance of the trainer(s), we highlight that the training on post-graduation level of Education to the training teacher(s) may promote specific reflections and learning for the performance in university teaching, especially considering the omission on the law and necessary investment for the field of universitarian pedagogy (^{GUIMARÃES; COSTA, 2022}). Also, though the interdisciplinarity proposed on the Pedagogy courses is interesting, it is important that the subjects are taught by graduate professors, with areas similar to the base of the course. In a reality with so many bachelor professors, it is relevant to foster the continuous education of those who teach in Pedagogy courses, especially in connection to the demands of staff provision for early childhood education and elementary school. Besides that, it is possible to notice the need - and the possibility - of articulating the work of teaching to research and extension, spreading its activities and adding new knowledge that may strengthen basic education. Finally, in the section on training linked to certification, focusing on undergraduate and graduate education, it is worth highlighting the emerging discussions on teacher training, especially in the field of early childhood education.

6 Closing remarks

In the context of discussion about initial training courses, especially for early childhood education, this study analyzes the training profile (in undergraduate and graduation) of professors in Pedagogy courses in IFs. Through a documentary research of the PCPs of 27 on-site Pedagogy courses and 532 Lattes curricula of the professors in those courses, it was possible to problematize the training of those professionals considering that their training paths integrate the actors that constitute the conditions that can mark the formation processes of the undergraduate students to work in teaching with children. When analyzing the requirements to start a career in the Educational area at IFs, it was possible to notice that the name of the category - “Professors of Basic, Technical and Technological Education” - did not match the performance of the researched professors, since they teach exclusively in higher education or graduation areas. As indicated on the data from Nilo Peçanha Platform, the institution does not offer a technical course focusing on teachers training. Therefore, it is preponderant to have a name coherent to this reality of teaching and, especially, that recognizes the highlight for teachers training.

It is worth highlighting the invisibility of graduations, especially Pedagogy, on the data collection made on-site and on the course catalogs of Setec/MEC. Considering the language theorists, this silencing produces effects and meanings that interpellate the intentionalities, disputes, and challenges present in higher education, for example, in the invisibility of some areas, the prominent voices, and the power relations present in the socio-historical processes.

This research prioritize, as corpus of the analyzes, the training of professors in Education field, considering that Pedagogy is a course that allows teaching children in early childhood education, focus of this study, and detected, in this scenario, that 31,39% of the professors are graduated in Pedagogy. Overall, the professors of this course studied longer than the other professors in IFs and Cefets, according to the data of Anísio Teixeira National Institute of Study and Educational Researches (Inep). Though there are a considerable number of professors with master’s degrees, only 34,58% of them studied in the field of Education. A similar framework repeats with the PhD professors since only 21,77% of them had taken their doctoral in Education. Thus, despite the significant number of professors with master’s and doctoral degrees, there is a low level of formation in Education - in all cases, lower than 35%. There is an urgent need for investment in post-graduate education in the area of Education, so that teachers in Pedagogy courses have a formative identity linked to their work in the area and in basic education, reverberating in the strengthening of their professional practice.

On the festive polyphony included in the Bakhtinian reference, it is possible to suggest a dialogue expanded by the entrance of different areas, arising from different training profiles. Still, it is worth highlighting the importance of continuous training policies, favoring communicability and, above all, generating belonging to the purposes of teacher training, including the demands of early childhood education.