Práticas educativas maternas e compreensão social na infância: um estudo com mães e filhos no período pré-escolar

Abstract

The present study deals with the relations that language used in maternal educational practices can have with the social understanding that children begin to develop in the first years of life. Social mothers' responses to the interview through the content analysis and the score of correct answers and errors presented by the children in the tasks of false beligf. In order to check the possible correlations

between the variables included in this study, it was used the Spearman Correlation Test, as well as it

was applied a multiple regression analysis model. The results showed significant correlations of the

child's age, mother's age, mother's schooling, mother's professional occupation, and number of older

siblings with some types of maternal educational practices. Regarding children's performances in the

false heliçftasks, there was only a positive correlation with the child's age. T here was a predominance

of maternal educational prac/ices that use a coercive and reprehensivc language, in contrast to practices

mediated by an explanatory and reflective language, that promote children's thinking about nOrms,

consequences or mental states. Five correlations were found between the language used in maternal

educational practices and children's performance in false belief tasks. A positive correlation between

practical ta/k abou/ beliefs and the task ofexplicitjàlse beliefand four negative correlations: a negative

correlation between practical punishments and the task offalse content belief; a negative correlation

between practical physical punishments and the task of belief and emotion; and, two negative

correlations between practical passivity with the task offalse beliefin content and with the task Qfbe/ief

and emotion. In this study, it was possible to verify that it is not all type of linguistic interaction that

associates or promotes the understanding of /àlS'e beliefs. The results obtained demonstrate the relevance

of social interactions and the quality of the content of the conversation experiences during childhood

and provide consistent evidence for the argument that the type of language used in maternal educa/ional practices Plays a highly important role for understanding false belich and, consequently, for the development of social understanding in childhood