Affectivity in the classroom : How teacher-learner emotional bond interfere in development

This paper aims to critically understand the affective bond established between educator and learner in school context under the social-historical-cultural perspective. The process analyses child development in relation to play and child agency, investigating how these aspects of school situation may help strengthen the affective bond among educator and learner and how this may impact the global development of children. For that matter, it comes from a social-historical-cultural approach (Vygotsky, 1934; Leontiev, 1977; Bahktin, 1981), based on Marx’s historical-dialetical marxism (1865) which considers the role of environment, social interaction and emotional experiences essential to the constitution of subjects, their consciousness and their psychological systems. Play (Leontiev, 2016; Vygotsky, 1934 e 1926) and child agency (Ahearn, 2001; Mercer, 2012; Freire, 1996; Cousinet, 1949; Pontecorvo & Zucchermaglio, 2005; Dewey, 1916; Vygotsky, 1984, 1972) are seen as tools that enable the teaching learning process, fasten development at the same time as make it viable to enhance the affective bond among those who take part in the school context. The data producted consist of daily school activities recorded and analysed in relation to the theoretical background. The results point to a higher envolvement and development of children as well as more significant emotional experiences in those when children experience being agents of their teaching learning processes.