Public policies for early childhood education and the right to education

This article presents a critical reading of the historical process of institutionalization of public policies of child education in Brazil. In this long journey, childhood was the subject of control of the actions of the State and society, apart from the current notion of right and duty of the State to ensure social rights to our children. The citizen guarantee right to childhood education, as women's historic achievement of social movements and of society as a whole, portrays a breakthrough in institutional, cultural and social terms. The recent legal formulations around the early childhood education can be understood as both progressive and regressive movements when considered as the right to education of the young.