REICE. Revista Iberoamericana sobre Calidad, Eficacia y Cambio en Educación

The subjective meaning given by kindergarten educators about the use and pedagogical applicability of silence in learning is described, as well as its impact on the socio-emotional development of the child. For this purpose, a qualitative-descriptive methodology was used that incorporated some of the analytical phases of the Grounded Theory, through 24 semi-structured interviews and 1 focus group, to preschool teachers in professional practice from three cities in the Atacama region of Chile. The collected information was constituted in nine semantic families that indicate a vision with respect to the Silence wide and predominantly oriented to visualize it, as a co-helper strategy to the execution of the learning activities, associated to the quality of the instruction given by the educator. It also highlights the meaning given to silence as a tool for personal development for the educator, the role of the family in the disposition of the kindergarten to silence; its enhancing role of various psychological capacities, the interest in training in the concept, and the possibility of its use as a negative control mechanism for the young child. Finally, some contributions and associations relevant to the discipline are presented and discuss some of the projections and methodological limitations of this study.