O brincar na educação infantil: percepções e saberes docentes em contextos brasileiro, italiano e espanhol

In Brazil, Italy, and Spain, play is recognized as a structuring axis of the Early Childhood Education curriculum, although it often occupies spaces of lower pedagogical value in everyday school life. This article aims to understand how personal experiences shape perceptions and teacher knowledge about play among teachers in these three contexts. A qualitative, descriptive, and exploratory study was conducted using the (auto)biographical method, drawing on narratives from 30 teachers (10 from each country). The theoretical framework brings together studies on play, teacher knowledge, and experience. The results indicate that personal experiences are decisive in the construction of perceptions and teacher knowledge about play. The transfer of these experiences into pedagogical practice occurs through the articulation of procedural, attitudinal, and conceptual knowledge. It is concluded that recognizing teachers’ experiences of play contributes to improving pedagogical practice in Early Childhood Education.