摘要:Brazil's early childhood education has been characterizing for the diversity of the Institutions that work with the children of Oto 6 years of age. The objective of this research was exactly doing "a examination of this diversity, taking as research field the municipal district of Florianópolis. Wlth this intention, we proceeded to a survey of the situation organized in three great fronts: 1) the profile of the lnstitution; 2) the Educator's profile; and 3) the profile of the work accomplished in the Institutions. Such survey was accomplished through questionnaires (4 modules: cadaster, professionals, educational work and routines of the institutions) and it inwlved about 20% of the institutions assessed (in 1991) in the organs of the government responsible personsforthis reason. The sample of20% (40 institutions) was inside stratified for administrative dependence and randomly selected of each stratum. The survey began in October of 1992 with na exploratory study and it closed up in December of 1994 with the descriptive annotation of the routine that each institution proceeded in its daily. In this article we presented a report of the collected data and we analyzed the maio characteristics of the early childhood education in Florianópolis, placing them in the perspective of the discussions joinedin several other research instances on the subject in Brazil.