This study was an attempt to explore and describe media utilisation from a Primary Science teacher's perspective, within a qualitative theoretical and methodological framework. A brief survey revealed what media was available in the schools, and observation and interview methods were used to give meaning to the media utmsation practice in schools. It was hoped that the results would assist in the construction of guidelines required to improve media use, and consequently science teaching in the rural primary schools. The inquiry revealed that apart from improving educational facilities, re-motivation of the science teachers was an essential ingredient in the search for ways of improving media use in Primary Science instruction / Educational Studies / M. Ed. (Didactics)

Summaries in Afrikaans and English / The transformative mission of the White Paper on Education (1995: 19) states that the South African education system is moving towards a single, national, non-racial system where all people are offered equil opportunities. Demographic and other changes make particular demands on the education system. The HSRC (1987:54) claim that distance edcation is increasingly viewed as a possible solution for educational problems. The literature study aims to motivate, from an andragogic-didactical perspective, the use of two-dimensional silent images in study material. A literature study was also undertaken on the perception of silent images and the elements involved in the perception of depth, movement, size, colour, etc., from which certain didactic guidelines were deducted with a view to the design of silent images. The ability of distance education students to identify the elements above, was emperically researched. The validity of the didactic guidelines were verified in this phase. / Die transformatiewe missie van die Witskrif vir Onderwys (1995: 19) stel dit dat die Suid-Afrikaanse onderwysstelsel oorgaan na 'n "enkele nasionale, nie-rassige stelsel" waar daar gelyke geleenthede vir aile mense gebied word. Demografiese en ander veranderinge stel besondere eise aan die onderwysstelsel. Die RGN (1987: 54) stel dit dat afstandsonderrig al meer as 'n moontlike oplossing gesien vir die onderwysprobleme. Die literatuurstudie het dit ten doe! om die gebruik van tweedimensionele stilbeelde in studiemateriaal in die Suid-Afrikaanse situasie andragogies-didakties te fundeer. 'n Literatuurstudie oor die persepsie van stilbeelde en die elemente wat betrokke is by die persepsie van diepte, beweging, grootte, kleur, ens. is gedoen waaruit sekere didaktiese riglyne met die oog op die ontwerp van stilbeelde gestel is. Die afstandsonderrigstudente se vermoe om bogenoemde elemente waar te neem, was empiries nagevors. Die geldigheid van die didaktiese riglyne is tydens hierdie fase geveri fireer. / Educational Studies / M. Ed. (Didaktiek)

This study combines analytical and narrative modes of historical enquiry with educational policy sociology to construct a history of media in education in Scotland. It uses the development trajectory of a single case, media education in Scotland's statutory education sector, to deconstruct and reconstruct a history of the institutional relationship between the Scottish Film Council (SFC) and the Scottish Education Department (SED) that stretches back to the 1930s. Existing literature describes media education in Scotland as a phenomenon located in the 1970s and 1980s. This study disaggregates media education discourse and dissolves chronological boundaries to make connections with earlier attempts to introduce media into Scottish education in the context of Scotland's constitutional relations within the UK. It employs historical and socio-cultural methods to analyse the intersections between actors and events taking place over six decades. The analysis and interpretation of the data is located in three time periods. Chapter 3 covers the period from 1929 until 1974 when, on the cusp of the emergence of the new texts and technologies of film, the SFC was established to promote and protect Scottish film culture and audio-visual technologies. During this time, the interdependence of teachers, the film trade and the educational policy-making community led to the production, distribution and exhibition of new and popular forms of text to national and international acclaim. By juxtaposing public and private documents circulating on the margins of statutory education, this chapter generates a new understanding of the importance of film and its technologies in Scotland in the pursuit of a more culturally relevant and contemporary model of education. It also describes how constraints upon Scotland’s cultural production infrastructure limited its capacity to effect significant educational change. In the 1970s, cultural, political and educational ferment in pre-devolution Scotland, created a discursive shift that gave rise first to media education and then to Media Studies. Articulating documents with wider discourses of educational and cultural change and interviews with key players, Chapter 4 describes a counter-narrative gaining momentum. The constraints of the practices of traditional subjects and pedagogies combined with the constraints on Scottish cultural production gave shape and form to the media education movement. Significantly for this study, the movement included influential members of Scottish education’s leadership class. Between 1983 to 1986, the innovative Media Education Development Project (MEDP) aimed to place media education at the centre of teaching and learning in Scottish education. This was fully funded by the SED, managed by the Scottish Council for Educational Technology (SCET) and the SFC and implemented by the Association for Media Education in Scotland (AMES). The MEDP overlapped briefly with another initiative in SCET, the Scottish Microelectronics Development Project (SMDP). During this period, Media Studies enjoyed rapid success as a popular non-advanced qualification in the upper secondary and further education sectors. Media education, however, did not. Chapter 5 explores the links between the MEDP and the SMDP through the agency of three central actors: SCET, the SFC and AMES in the context of a second term of Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government. This study concludes that between 1934 and 1964, the SFC was a key educational bureaucracy in Scottish education. The SFC’s role as an agent of change represented the recognition of a link between relevant and contemporary Scottish cultural production and the transformation of statutory education. Between 1929 and 1982 three iterations for media and education in Scotland can be discerned. In 1983, the MEDP began a fourth but its progress faltered. The study suggests that if a new iteration for media and education in Scotland in the twenty-first century is to emerge, an institutional link between media culture, technology and educational transformation requires to be restored.

Questa ricerca interdisciplinare prende atto delle visioni contrastanti all’interno della Media Literacy: da un lato quella utopica che individua nel progresso tecnologico l’alba di una nuova era per l’umanità, dall’altro l’approccio distopico preoccupato dalle potenziali derive conseguenti all’uso acritico e compulsivo dei dispositivi. Tale contrapposizione, sebbene con diverse sfumature, si riverbera nei vari ambiti educativi spesso impedendo la piena comprensione delle dinamiche della comunicazione contemporanea. La prospettiva antropocentrica che ispira l’intera trattazione valorizza i contributi non apodittici capaci di “dialogare”, passando dalla logica escludente dell’aut - aut a quella inclusiva dell’et - et. A partire da alcune significative acquisizioni delle Scienze Cognitive, delle Scienze Umane e dei Media Studies a cui sono dedicati i primi due capitoli, viene offerto un excursus nella literacy teso ad individuare piste pedagogiche praticabili nei diversi contesti, frutto della sperimentazione e della verifica sul campo riportate nella parte finale. Il lavoro intende dimostrare, non soltanto a livello empirico, che la Rete e la sua stessa orizzontalità possono e devono diventare paradigma operativo per un’azione educativa efficace in grado di superare visioni settoriali e semplificazioni, grazie ad un approccio multiprospettico incentrato sulla persona chiamata a “ri-conoscersi” per ripensare l’educazione nell’era digitale. / This interdisciplinary research notes the conflicting views within the Media Literacy: from one side the utopian one locating in technological progress the dawn of a new era for humanity and from the other the dystopian approach worried by potential drifts consequent to the uncritical and compulsive use of the devices. This conflict, although with different nuances, reverberates in the various educational environments often preventing the full understanding of the dynamics of contemporary communication. The anthropocentric perspective that inspires the whole discussion enhances non-dogmatic contributions able to "talk", passing from the exclusionary logic of the “aut – aut” to that inclusive “et – et”. Starting from some significant acquisitions of Cognitive Sciences, Human Sciences and Media Studies to which the first two chapters are dedicated, an excursus in literacy aimed at identifying educational tracks viable in different contexts, is offered as a result of experimentation and verification on field described in the final part. The work aims to demonstrate, not only empirically, that the Internet and its own horizontality can and should become operational paradigm for effective educational action able to overcome sectoral visions and simplifications, thanks to a multi-perspective approach centered on the person called to "re-cognize oneself" to rethink education in the digital age.

The aim of this diploma thesis, which is entitled "Media Education in schools - critical-analytic or production approach", is to map the current state of practice of media education in a sample of secondary schools (gymnasiums) in central Bohemia. Our goal is to provide readers with broader theoretical insight into the concept of media literacy (as a goal of any media education), to capture a brief history of development of the perspective on the role of media education, as well as to examine how media education is incorporated within the Czech system of secondary education, and also to reflect on its possible forms of implementation. Last but not least, the intent of the thesis is to describe two basic approaches to media education, both of which are directed to development of media literacy. Our research led by a combination of questionnaires and interviews with educators suppose to be used as a tool that should help us to bridge the theory with an image of factual practice. The research part primarily aims to provide insight into framework of the current practice of teaching media education in secondary schools in central Bohemia, and through interpretation of the main remarks points to (at least) basic issues which teachers of media education must deal with.

Nesta tese entende-se que a infância é uma construção cultural, social e histórica, sujeita a mudanças. Inscrita em uma matriz de inteligibilidade que vê a contemporaneidade marcada por condições peculiares, imbricadas e implicadas naquilo que tem sido amplamente conhecido como cultura pós-moderna, considerase que grandes transformações têm alterado a forma de estarmos no mundo. Supõese que as condições culturais contemporâneas produzem infâncias distintas da infância moderna − ingênua, dócil, dependente dos adultos − e modificam as formas das crianças viverem esse período tido como próprio delas. Vivemos um estado da cultura, com implicações contundentes da mídia e do consumo, que tem se configurado de forma diferente daquele da modernidade e produzido sujeitos distintos dos sujeitos modernos. Esta tese tem como um de seus objetivos dar visibilidade às crianças pobres que freqüentam algumas escolas no município de Porto Alegre nesse início do século XXI. Procura-se realizar uma das leituras possíveis de como os sujeitos infantis das escolas estudadas vivem a infância sob as condições culturais pós-modernas, e apontar a produtividade dessa cultura no delineamento de um determinado tipo de infância, que se opta por chamar de “infância pós-moderna”. Busca-se mostrar como as crianças pobres das escolas estudadas são produzidas, formatadas, fabricadas pela mídia e pelo consumo, configurando novos modos de ser criança e de viver a infância. Pretende-se também colocar sob tensão as imagens convencionais e modernas de infância com que muitos professores persistem trabalhando na contemporaneidade. Para isso, optou-se tanto por lançar mão de estudos de autores que tratam de descrever, interpretar e problematizar a condição cultural pós-moderna, como daqueles que realizam análises culturais sobre as infâncias. Para o estudo das condições culturais pós-modernas, foram também coletados, e considerados para compor o corpus de análise, artefatos que integram a cultura circulante da mídia e do consumo como reportagens, comunicações publicitárias, imagens de crianças, diferentes produtos direcionados à infância, etc. Para dar visibilidade às conexões entre as crianças das escolas estudadas e a cultura pós-moderna foi realizado um inventário de artefatos e práticas presentes nas escolas, registrou-se em fotos e em anotações no diário de campo situações, conversas com crianças e professoras, bem como foram coletados desenhos e textos produzidos em sala de aula. Tanto os materiais coletados nas escolas, como os coletados fora delas, ajudaram a compor e a expor um panorama das condições culturais pós-modernas, e contribuíram para o objetivo de mostrar uma infância pós-moderna que vai à escola. Ao visibilizar e analisar as formas como as crianças pobres das escolas estudadas vivem a infância e constituem-se como alunos, foi possível perceber umaconsonância com as configurações culturais do mundo contemporâneo. Visibilidade, efemeridade, ambivalência, fugacidade, descartabilidade, individualismo, superficialidade, instabilidade, fazem parte de suas vidas. Observou-se, nas escolas estudadas, um modo de ser criança que busca infatigavelmente a fruição e o prazer e, nessa busca, borra fronteiras de classe, gênero e geração. Um modo de ser criança que procura incansavelmente inscrever-se na cultura globalmente reconhecida e fazer parte de uma comunidade de consumidores de artefatos em voga na mídia do momento; que produz seu corpo de forma espetacular para que ele esteja em harmonia com o mundo das visibilidades; que se caracteriza por constantes e ininterruptos movimentos e mutações. São crianças que vão se tornando o que são, vivendo sob a condição pós-moderna. Tais crianças provocam desestabilização das pedagogias, causam inquietações, minam o pensamento binário, porque não é mais possível classificá-las, cartografálas, enquadrá-las nos lugares tradicionalmente designados para infantis e para escolares. São polivalentes, podendo ser de diferentes e distintas formas ao mesmo tempo e, no momento seguinte, já possuírem outras formas, antes mesmo que seja possível conhecê-las e apreendê-las. Crianças pós-modernas são um desafio para a educação escolarizada porque não permitem o estabelecimento de uma ordem e a elaboração de planos a longo prazo. / In this thesis, childhood has been understood as a cultural, social, and historical construction, subject to changes. Inscribed in an intelligibility matrix that sees contemporaneity marked by peculiar conditions that are intertwined and implied in something that has been widely known as post-modern culture, big transformations have altered the way we are in the world. It has been supposed that contemporary cultural conditions have both produced childhoods that are distinct from the modern childhood – naïve, docile, dependent on adults – and modified the ways children experience this period seen as theirs. We live in a state of culture, with incisive implications of media and consumption, which has shown a different configuration from that of modernity and produced subjects that are distinct from the modern subjects. One of the objectives of this thesis is to give visibility to poor children that have attended some schools in Porto Alegre in the beginning of the twentieth-first century. I have attempted both to undertake one of the possible readings of how infantile subjects from those schools have lived childhood under post-modern cultural conditions, and point out the productivity of this culture to delineate a certain type of childhood, which has been called “post-modern childhood”. I have shown how poor children from those schools have been produced, formatted, made by the media and consumption, thus forming new modes of being a child and living childhood. The thesis has also intended to tension conventional and modern images of childhood with which many teachers have persisted to work in contemporaneity. To do so, I have used studies produced by authors that have described, interpreted, and problematized the post-modern cultural condition, as well as authors that have culturally analyzed childhoods. For the study of post-modern cultural conditions, I have also collected and considered as corpus the artifacts that integrate the media and consumption culture, such as reports, advertising communications, pictures of children, different children-oriented products, etc. In order to give visibility to connections between children from the schools studied and the post-modern culture, I have made an inventory of artifacts and practices found in the schools; I have documented situations, conversations with children and teachers with photographs and notes in my field notebook; and I have collected drawings and texts produced in the classroom. Both materials collected in school and the ones collected outside have helped me to compose and expose an overview of post-modern cultural conditions, and have contributed towards the objective of showing a post-modern childhood that attends school. On visualizing and analyzing the ways poor children from the schools considered in this study have lived their childhood and constituted themselves as students, it is possible to perceive a consonance with cultural configurations of the contemporar world. Visibility, ephemerality, ambivalence, fugacity, disposability, individualism, superficiality, and instability are integral parts of their lives. I have observed in the schools a way of being a child that has indefatigably searched for fruition and pleasure and, in this search, has blurred the boundaries of class, gender, and generation. A way of being a child that has tirelessly searched to be inscribed in the globally acknowledged culture and belong to a community of consumers of artifacts currently in vogue in the media; that has produced their bodies in a spectacular way so that it is in harmony with the world of visibilities; that has been characterized by constant and ongoing moves and mutations. They are children that have become who they are, living under the post-modern conditions. Such children have provoked unstableness of pedagogies, caused uneasiness, undermined the binary thought, because it is no longer possible to classify them, chart them, frame them in places traditionally assigned to children and school students. They are polyvalent, and may show different and distinct forms at the same time, and in the next instant they can acquire other forms, even before it is possible to know them and apprehend them. Post-modern children have been a challenge to school education, since they do not allow for the establishment of an order and the elaboration of long-term planning.

This study was an attempt to explore and describe media utilisation from a Primary Science teacher's perspective, within a qualitative theoretical and methodological framework. A brief survey revealed what media was available in the schools, and observation and interview methods were used to give meaning to the media utmsation practice in schools. It was hoped that the results would assist in the construction of guidelines required to improve media use, and consequently science teaching in the rural primary schools. The inquiry revealed that apart from improving educational facilities, re-motivation of the science teachers was an essential ingredient in the search for ways of improving media use in Primary Science instruction / Educational Studies / M. Ed. (Didactics)

Summaries in Afrikaans and English / The transformative mission of the White Paper on Education (1995: 19) states that the South African education system is moving towards a single, national, non-racial system where all people are offered equil opportunities. Demographic and other changes make particular demands on the education system. The HSRC (1987:54) claim that distance edcation is increasingly viewed as a possible solution for educational problems. The literature study aims to motivate, from an andragogic-didactical perspective, the use of two-dimensional silent images in study material. A literature study was also undertaken on the perception of silent images and the elements involved in the perception of depth, movement, size, colour, etc., from which certain didactic guidelines were deducted with a view to the design of silent images. The ability of distance education students to identify the elements above, was emperically researched. The validity of the didactic guidelines were verified in this phase. / Die transformatiewe missie van die Witskrif vir Onderwys (1995: 19) stel dit dat die Suid-Afrikaanse onderwysstelsel oorgaan na 'n "enkele nasionale, nie-rassige stelsel" waar daar gelyke geleenthede vir aile mense gebied word. Demografiese en ander veranderinge stel besondere eise aan die onderwysstelsel. Die RGN (1987: 54) stel dit dat afstandsonderrig al meer as 'n moontlike oplossing gesien vir die onderwysprobleme. Die literatuurstudie het dit ten doe! om die gebruik van tweedimensionele stilbeelde in studiemateriaal in die Suid-Afrikaanse situasie andragogies-didakties te fundeer. 'n Literatuurstudie oor die persepsie van stilbeelde en die elemente wat betrokke is by die persepsie van diepte, beweging, grootte, kleur, ens. is gedoen waaruit sekere didaktiese riglyne met die oog op die ontwerp van stilbeelde gestel is. Die afstandsonderrigstudente se vermoe om bogenoemde elemente waar te neem, was empiries nagevors. Die geldigheid van die didaktiese riglyne is tydens hierdie fase geveri fireer. / Educational Studies / M. Ed. (Didaktiek)

Nesta tese entende-se que a infância é uma construção cultural, social e histórica, sujeita a mudanças. Inscrita em uma matriz de inteligibilidade que vê a contemporaneidade marcada por condições peculiares, imbricadas e implicadas naquilo que tem sido amplamente conhecido como cultura pós-moderna, considerase que grandes transformações têm alterado a forma de estarmos no mundo. Supõese que as condições culturais contemporâneas produzem infâncias distintas da infância moderna − ingênua, dócil, dependente dos adultos − e modificam as formas das crianças viverem esse período tido como próprio delas. Vivemos um estado da cultura, com implicações contundentes da mídia e do consumo, que tem se configurado de forma diferente daquele da modernidade e produzido sujeitos distintos dos sujeitos modernos. Esta tese tem como um de seus objetivos dar visibilidade às crianças pobres que freqüentam algumas escolas no município de Porto Alegre nesse início do século XXI. Procura-se realizar uma das leituras possíveis de como os sujeitos infantis das escolas estudadas vivem a infância sob as condições culturais pós-modernas, e apontar a produtividade dessa cultura no delineamento de um determinado tipo de infância, que se opta por chamar de “infância pós-moderna”. Busca-se mostrar como as crianças pobres das escolas estudadas são produzidas, formatadas, fabricadas pela mídia e pelo consumo, configurando novos modos de ser criança e de viver a infância. Pretende-se também colocar sob tensão as imagens convencionais e modernas de infância com que muitos professores persistem trabalhando na contemporaneidade. Para isso, optou-se tanto por lançar mão de estudos de autores que tratam de descrever, interpretar e problematizar a condição cultural pós-moderna, como daqueles que realizam análises culturais sobre as infâncias. Para o estudo das condições culturais pós-modernas, foram também coletados, e considerados para compor o corpus de análise, artefatos que integram a cultura circulante da mídia e do consumo como reportagens, comunicações publicitárias, imagens de crianças, diferentes produtos direcionados à infância, etc. Para dar visibilidade às conexões entre as crianças das escolas estudadas e a cultura pós-moderna foi realizado um inventário de artefatos e práticas presentes nas escolas, registrou-se em fotos e em anotações no diário de campo situações, conversas com crianças e professoras, bem como foram coletados desenhos e textos produzidos em sala de aula. Tanto os materiais coletados nas escolas, como os coletados fora delas, ajudaram a compor e a expor um panorama das condições culturais pós-modernas, e contribuíram para o objetivo de mostrar uma infância pós-moderna que vai à escola. Ao visibilizar e analisar as formas como as crianças pobres das escolas estudadas vivem a infância e constituem-se como alunos, foi possível perceber umaconsonância com as configurações culturais do mundo contemporâneo. Visibilidade, efemeridade, ambivalência, fugacidade, descartabilidade, individualismo, superficialidade, instabilidade, fazem parte de suas vidas. Observou-se, nas escolas estudadas, um modo de ser criança que busca infatigavelmente a fruição e o prazer e, nessa busca, borra fronteiras de classe, gênero e geração. Um modo de ser criança que procura incansavelmente inscrever-se na cultura globalmente reconhecida e fazer parte de uma comunidade de consumidores de artefatos em voga na mídia do momento; que produz seu corpo de forma espetacular para que ele esteja em harmonia com o mundo das visibilidades; que se caracteriza por constantes e ininterruptos movimentos e mutações. São crianças que vão se tornando o que são, vivendo sob a condição pós-moderna. Tais crianças provocam desestabilização das pedagogias, causam inquietações, minam o pensamento binário, porque não é mais possível classificá-las, cartografálas, enquadrá-las nos lugares tradicionalmente designados para infantis e para escolares. São polivalentes, podendo ser de diferentes e distintas formas ao mesmo tempo e, no momento seguinte, já possuírem outras formas, antes mesmo que seja possível conhecê-las e apreendê-las. Crianças pós-modernas são um desafio para a educação escolarizada porque não permitem o estabelecimento de uma ordem e a elaboração de planos a longo prazo. / In this thesis, childhood has been understood as a cultural, social, and historical construction, subject to changes. Inscribed in an intelligibility matrix that sees contemporaneity marked by peculiar conditions that are intertwined and implied in something that has been widely known as post-modern culture, big transformations have altered the way we are in the world. It has been supposed that contemporary cultural conditions have both produced childhoods that are distinct from the modern childhood – naïve, docile, dependent on adults – and modified the ways children experience this period seen as theirs. We live in a state of culture, with incisive implications of media and consumption, which has shown a different configuration from that of modernity and produced subjects that are distinct from the modern subjects. One of the objectives of this thesis is to give visibility to poor children that have attended some schools in Porto Alegre in the beginning of the twentieth-first century. I have attempted both to undertake one of the possible readings of how infantile subjects from those schools have lived childhood under post-modern cultural conditions, and point out the productivity of this culture to delineate a certain type of childhood, which has been called “post-modern childhood”. I have shown how poor children from those schools have been produced, formatted, made by the media and consumption, thus forming new modes of being a child and living childhood. The thesis has also intended to tension conventional and modern images of childhood with which many teachers have persisted to work in contemporaneity. To do so, I have used studies produced by authors that have described, interpreted, and problematized the post-modern cultural condition, as well as authors that have culturally analyzed childhoods. For the study of post-modern cultural conditions, I have also collected and considered as corpus the artifacts that integrate the media and consumption culture, such as reports, advertising communications, pictures of children, different children-oriented products, etc. In order to give visibility to connections between children from the schools studied and the post-modern culture, I have made an inventory of artifacts and practices found in the schools; I have documented situations, conversations with children and teachers with photographs and notes in my field notebook; and I have collected drawings and texts produced in the classroom. Both materials collected in school and the ones collected outside have helped me to compose and expose an overview of post-modern cultural conditions, and have contributed towards the objective of showing a post-modern childhood that attends school. On visualizing and analyzing the ways poor children from the schools considered in this study have lived their childhood and constituted themselves as students, it is possible to perceive a consonance with cultural configurations of the contemporar world. Visibility, ephemerality, ambivalence, fugacity, disposability, individualism, superficiality, and instability are integral parts of their lives. I have observed in the schools a way of being a child that has indefatigably searched for fruition and pleasure and, in this search, has blurred the boundaries of class, gender, and generation. A way of being a child that has tirelessly searched to be inscribed in the globally acknowledged culture and belong to a community of consumers of artifacts currently in vogue in the media; that has produced their bodies in a spectacular way so that it is in harmony with the world of visibilities; that has been characterized by constant and ongoing moves and mutations. They are children that have become who they are, living under the post-modern conditions. Such children have provoked unstableness of pedagogies, caused uneasiness, undermined the binary thought, because it is no longer possible to classify them, chart them, frame them in places traditionally assigned to children and school students. They are polyvalent, and may show different and distinct forms at the same time, and in the next instant they can acquire other forms, even before it is possible to know them and apprehend them. Post-modern children have been a challenge to school education, since they do not allow for the establishment of an order and the elaboration of long-term planning.

Nesta tese entende-se que a infância é uma construção cultural, social e histórica, sujeita a mudanças. Inscrita em uma matriz de inteligibilidade que vê a contemporaneidade marcada por condições peculiares, imbricadas e implicadas naquilo que tem sido amplamente conhecido como cultura pós-moderna, considerase que grandes transformações têm alterado a forma de estarmos no mundo. Supõese que as condições culturais contemporâneas produzem infâncias distintas da infância moderna − ingênua, dócil, dependente dos adultos − e modificam as formas das crianças viverem esse período tido como próprio delas. Vivemos um estado da cultura, com implicações contundentes da mídia e do consumo, que tem se configurado de forma diferente daquele da modernidade e produzido sujeitos distintos dos sujeitos modernos. Esta tese tem como um de seus objetivos dar visibilidade às crianças pobres que freqüentam algumas escolas no município de Porto Alegre nesse início do século XXI. Procura-se realizar uma das leituras possíveis de como os sujeitos infantis das escolas estudadas vivem a infância sob as condições culturais pós-modernas, e apontar a produtividade dessa cultura no delineamento de um determinado tipo de infância, que se opta por chamar de “infância pós-moderna”. Busca-se mostrar como as crianças pobres das escolas estudadas são produzidas, formatadas, fabricadas pela mídia e pelo consumo, configurando novos modos de ser criança e de viver a infância. Pretende-se também colocar sob tensão as imagens convencionais e modernas de infância com que muitos professores persistem trabalhando na contemporaneidade. Para isso, optou-se tanto por lançar mão de estudos de autores que tratam de descrever, interpretar e problematizar a condição cultural pós-moderna, como daqueles que realizam análises culturais sobre as infâncias. Para o estudo das condições culturais pós-modernas, foram também coletados, e considerados para compor o corpus de análise, artefatos que integram a cultura circulante da mídia e do consumo como reportagens, comunicações publicitárias, imagens de crianças, diferentes produtos direcionados à infância, etc. Para dar visibilidade às conexões entre as crianças das escolas estudadas e a cultura pós-moderna foi realizado um inventário de artefatos e práticas presentes nas escolas, registrou-se em fotos e em anotações no diário de campo situações, conversas com crianças e professoras, bem como foram coletados desenhos e textos produzidos em sala de aula. Tanto os materiais coletados nas escolas, como os coletados fora delas, ajudaram a compor e a expor um panorama das condições culturais pós-modernas, e contribuíram para o objetivo de mostrar uma infância pós-moderna que vai à escola. Ao visibilizar e analisar as formas como as crianças pobres das escolas estudadas vivem a infância e constituem-se como alunos, foi possível perceber umaconsonância com as configurações culturais do mundo contemporâneo. Visibilidade, efemeridade, ambivalência, fugacidade, descartabilidade, individualismo, superficialidade, instabilidade, fazem parte de suas vidas. Observou-se, nas escolas estudadas, um modo de ser criança que busca infatigavelmente a fruição e o prazer e, nessa busca, borra fronteiras de classe, gênero e geração. Um modo de ser criança que procura incansavelmente inscrever-se na cultura globalmente reconhecida e fazer parte de uma comunidade de consumidores de artefatos em voga na mídia do momento; que produz seu corpo de forma espetacular para que ele esteja em harmonia com o mundo das visibilidades; que se caracteriza por constantes e ininterruptos movimentos e mutações. São crianças que vão se tornando o que são, vivendo sob a condição pós-moderna. Tais crianças provocam desestabilização das pedagogias, causam inquietações, minam o pensamento binário, porque não é mais possível classificá-las, cartografálas, enquadrá-las nos lugares tradicionalmente designados para infantis e para escolares. São polivalentes, podendo ser de diferentes e distintas formas ao mesmo tempo e, no momento seguinte, já possuírem outras formas, antes mesmo que seja possível conhecê-las e apreendê-las. Crianças pós-modernas são um desafio para a educação escolarizada porque não permitem o estabelecimento de uma ordem e a elaboração de planos a longo prazo. / In this thesis, childhood has been understood as a cultural, social, and historical construction, subject to changes. Inscribed in an intelligibility matrix that sees contemporaneity marked by peculiar conditions that are intertwined and implied in something that has been widely known as post-modern culture, big transformations have altered the way we are in the world. It has been supposed that contemporary cultural conditions have both produced childhoods that are distinct from the modern childhood – naïve, docile, dependent on adults – and modified the ways children experience this period seen as theirs. We live in a state of culture, with incisive implications of media and consumption, which has shown a different configuration from that of modernity and produced subjects that are distinct from the modern subjects. One of the objectives of this thesis is to give visibility to poor children that have attended some schools in Porto Alegre in the beginning of the twentieth-first century. I have attempted both to undertake one of the possible readings of how infantile subjects from those schools have lived childhood under post-modern cultural conditions, and point out the productivity of this culture to delineate a certain type of childhood, which has been called “post-modern childhood”. I have shown how poor children from those schools have been produced, formatted, made by the media and consumption, thus forming new modes of being a child and living childhood. The thesis has also intended to tension conventional and modern images of childhood with which many teachers have persisted to work in contemporaneity. To do so, I have used studies produced by authors that have described, interpreted, and problematized the post-modern cultural condition, as well as authors that have culturally analyzed childhoods. For the study of post-modern cultural conditions, I have also collected and considered as corpus the artifacts that integrate the media and consumption culture, such as reports, advertising communications, pictures of children, different children-oriented products, etc. In order to give visibility to connections between children from the schools studied and the post-modern culture, I have made an inventory of artifacts and practices found in the schools; I have documented situations, conversations with children and teachers with photographs and notes in my field notebook; and I have collected drawings and texts produced in the classroom. Both materials collected in school and the ones collected outside have helped me to compose and expose an overview of post-modern cultural conditions, and have contributed towards the objective of showing a post-modern childhood that attends school. On visualizing and analyzing the ways poor children from the schools considered in this study have lived their childhood and constituted themselves as students, it is possible to perceive a consonance with cultural configurations of the contemporar world. Visibility, ephemerality, ambivalence, fugacity, disposability, individualism, superficiality, and instability are integral parts of their lives. I have observed in the schools a way of being a child that has indefatigably searched for fruition and pleasure and, in this search, has blurred the boundaries of class, gender, and generation. A way of being a child that has tirelessly searched to be inscribed in the globally acknowledged culture and belong to a community of consumers of artifacts currently in vogue in the media; that has produced their bodies in a spectacular way so that it is in harmony with the world of visibilities; that has been characterized by constant and ongoing moves and mutations. They are children that have become who they are, living under the post-modern conditions. Such children have provoked unstableness of pedagogies, caused uneasiness, undermined the binary thought, because it is no longer possible to classify them, chart them, frame them in places traditionally assigned to children and school students. They are polyvalent, and may show different and distinct forms at the same time, and in the next instant they can acquire other forms, even before it is possible to know them and apprehend them. Post-modern children have been a challenge to school education, since they do not allow for the establishment of an order and the elaboration of long-term planning.