Modelos Pedagógicos en Educación Inicial: Estudio De Casos en la Ciudad de Quito

This article presents the results of a research on pedagogical models of early education. Data collection was carried out through observation of the school day in forty-eight public and private early education institutions in the city of Quito. The information was collected in field diaries and systematized in matrices. In a previous historical research, it was determined that kindergartens were present in Ecuador since 1938, as well as several institutions dedicated to the care of infants considering aspects of cleanliness and feeding, characteristics of the so-called welfare model. This study was carried out until 2010. Since then, there was no empirical evidence of which aspects of the educational or welfare model were modified or which ones prevailed. The research determined that at present the welfare model still prevails in most early education institutions with little incidence of the curriculum in educational activities. On the contrary, in the institutions where the educational model is present, it has undergone some transformations with respect to the Froebelian and Montessorian model that was in force until a few years ago. It was found that there are differences between public and private institutions. In the former, through learning environments, an activism takes account of educational activities, while in private institutions a strong schooling is part of the day-to-day life of infants. Although all the institutions affirm that the educational model is constructivist, little of it is developed, and, as in the educational institutions where the welfare model prevails, the national curriculum has little or scarce incidence.