Search

This paper proposes a script for discussing the recent trajectory of (public) higher education in Portugal highlighting structuring dynamics, based on studies, data and empirical research available: from expansion to exogenous privatization; from Europeanisation driven by the Bologna Process and the managerial Modernization Agenda to the structural adjustment policies promoted by the EU; from prolonged underfunding to the diversification of financing sources and the privatization within the public sector, with attention to certain aspects of teacher’s work and academic condition. Based on this debate some arguments are advanced in order to support a perspective about the multifaceted singularity of this trajectory, Uma trajetória singular? Apontamentos sobre europeização, privatização e especificidades do ensino superior português ((A singular trajectory? Some notes on Europeanization, privatization and certain specificities of Portuguese higher education), Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia/FCT, MCTES-PT., info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

This article intends to empirically document the ambiguity, even ambivalence, of governance practices1, through the study of a public policy in Portugal, the Programme InovAction, that stimulates intervention projects in ‘local state of emergency’ territories. In this way, we search to contribute to the debate around the reform of the State and public policies, apprehended through metamorphoses in the coordination of collective action in education. Education, State and governance are viewed as social relationships and sites of social practices; governance is understood as a field in which policies, discourses and practices manifest themselves in neo-liberal hegemonic versions or according to contradictory achievements. The data we mobilize were built on documental analysis and on information obtained through semi-structured interviews (to national, regional and local projects Coordinators, technicians and young people). The unfolding discussion illuminates tensions and contradictions in governance practices of Programme InovAction: the strengthening of collective action may occur simultaneously with the construction of routes and alternative spaces of social exclusion; the reduction of the social responsibility of the school with regards to certain audiences challenges approaches to the construction of a public space of education; the privilege given to known interests has gone side by side with practices to broaden the local governance circle. info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

Taking as an empirical basis some of the data from a questionnaire applied to a sample of approximately eight hundred parents from three public secondary schools, this paper discusses how various categories of parents organise "hierarchies of excellence" through the "arguments for choice" that they prioritise when choosing their children?s school for entrance into secondary education (year 10 of schooling, equivalent to the year 4 of compulsory secondary education in Spain - ESO). The analysis of the data highlights that, in all segments of parents, a group can be found that attaches great importance to academic indicators; in addition, an unequal concentration of these groups was verified in the three establishments studied, which reflects a predominance of different types of public in each school. Thus, even though the importance attributed to the "arguments for choice" varies according to the educational level of the parents, in the cases studied the "hierarchies of excellence" are distinguished, above all, by the school variable.

Tomando como base empírica algunos de los datos del cuestionario aplicado a una muestra de cerca de ochocientos padres seleccionados en tres centros públicos de enseñanza secundaria, en este artículo analizamos el modo cómo diferentes categorías de padres organizan "jerarquías de excelencia", a través de los "argumentos de elección" a los que dan prioridad cuando escogen el centro educativo, al pasar a la enseñanza secundaria en 10º curso (4º de la ESO). Del análisis de los datos destaca que, en todos los segmentos de padres, encontramos una fracción que concede gran importancia a los indicadores de naturaleza académica; verificamos, además, una concentración desigual de estas fracciones en los tres establecimientos estudiados, lo que refleja un predominio de diferentes tipos de público en cada escuela. De este modo, aunque varíe la importancia atribuida a los "argumentos de elección", según el nivel de estudios de los padres, en los casos estudiados las "jerarquías de excelencia" se distinguen, sobre todo, de acuerdo con la variable centro.

Rethinking Education (EC, 2012) suggests a new phase in European education policy. The constitution of education as a marketable service and the European (Higher) Education area as a market was pinpointed as an implicit agenda in the silent revolution in education landscape fostered by the open method of coordination and the Bologna and Copenhagen Processes. What suggests a new momentum is that: (i) education appears programmatically conceived as a marketable service, in the terms of a business and a European-wide and global market; (ii) a VET reform is underway based on German apprenticeship model, which brings together a version of minimal cheap education and a commercial strategy; (iii) there are signs of centralisation of European education policy on the EC and the CEU, under the European semester, and the apparent decline in importance of the Bologna and Copenhagen Processes and the Education & Training 2020 Programme. When looking at Portugal nowadays, the Europeanisation of education, fostered by economic and financial, as well as educational, European policies, and the choices of the government, presents a complex picture, with the shrinking of the welfare state, the increase in education privatisation and commercialisation, and the growing gap between national and European education welfare levels., This study was financed by national funding from the FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (Foundation for Science and Technology) (Project PEst-OE/CED/UI1661/2014)., info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

Both the Portuguese appropriation of lifelong learning policy proposed by the European Union since the mid-1990s and the definition of adult education policy in Portugal were based on a discourse that emphasized an “unacceptable educational deficit” for democracy. The role of the State in the governance of public provision of adult education was linked to its disengagement or precarious contractual involvement in the same. In this article, we discuss developments in adult education policy from the mid-1990s to 2010 in terms of an ambivalent policy dynamic and orientation of educational change, examining how a civil society organisation used adult education as a tool for rural development, to support economy and individual resilience in the face of socio-economic weaknesses and risks., info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

Neste texto, toma‑se o desenvolvimento do dispositivo de reconhecimento, validação e certificação de competências como mote para debater opções na reforma do Estado quanto ao seu envolvimento na provisão do bem‑estar social. Argumenta‑se que o Estado português, em consonância com horizontes reformistas da matriz sociopolítica de governação e do Estado gestionário, criou uma oferta pública de educação e formação de adultos desvinculada de um sistema público, que passa pela contratualização e pela fundação de um quase‑mercado e coloca sob contingência direitos sociais e humanos de produtores e de beneficiários do serviço público. O percurso estudado é marcado por tensões entre uma política social multidimensional e uma política para/segundo a economia, de cariz qualificacionista, particularista e compensatório. A dinâmica em curso afirma a educação, o Estado e a governação como terrenos de luta, conflituais e contraditórios, em que têm lugar a acção e o enfrentamento políticos. This paper traces the development of the mechanism for the recognition, validation and certification of skills as a means of discussing state reforms in the provision of social welfare. It is argued that the Portuguese state, in keeping with the reformist aspirations of the sociopolitical matrix of governance and the managerial state, has created a public supply of adult training and education that is disconnected from a public system, involving contractualization and the foundation of a quasi-market and conditioning the social and human rights of public service producers and beneficiaries. The trajectory is marked by tensions between a multidimensional social policy and a qualificationist, particularist and compensatory policy oriented towards, and in accordance with, the economy. In the ongoing dynamics, education, the state and governance become conflictual and contradictory terrains of struggle in which political confrontation and action take place. Dans ce texte, nous prenons le développement du dispositif de reconnaissance, de validation et de certification de compétences comme base pour débattre des options dans la réforme de l’État quant à son engagement dans la promotion du bien-être social. Nous y défendons que l’État portugais, en consonance avec des horizons réformistes de la matrice sociopolitique de gouvernance et de l’ État gestionnaire, a créé une offre publique d’éducation et de formation d’adultes détachée d’un système public, qui passe par la contractualisation et par la fondation d’un presque - marché et place sous contingence des droits sociaux et humains de producteurs et de bénéficiaires du service public. Le parcours étudié est marqué par des tensions entre une politique sociale multidimensionnelle et une politique pour/selon l’économie, au caractère qualificateur, particulariste et compensatoire. La dynamique en cours affirme l’éducation, l’État et la gouvernance comme des champs de bataille, conflictuels et contradictoires, où se déroulent l’action et la confrontation politiques.

Introdução: as mulheres já são mais da metade da população brasileira. Entretanto, na hora da busca pelo emprego, o público feminino está em desvantagem. Muitas não tem qualificação e experiência profissional. O Programa Mulheres Mil foi implantado nos Institutos Federais (IFs) com o objetivo de oferecer as bases de uma política social de inclusão, por meio do qual as mulheres em situação de vulnerabilidade social tem acesso à educação profissional, emprego e renda. Objetivo: avaliar o bem-estar subjetivo em participantes do Programa Mulheres Mil, na cidade de Barbacena-MG. Métodos: Após aprovação do Comitê de Ética em Pesquisa, 41 mulheres de 5 bairros distintos da cidade de Barbacena foram selecionadas, de acordo com critérios de inclusão pré-determinados. No dia da matrícula, responderam, por meio de entrevista, ao Questionário de Saúde Geral e às escalas de Autoestima, de Ansiedade e Depressão, de Afetos Positivos e Negativos e de Satisfação com a Vida, todos cientificamente validados para uso no Brasil. Posteriormente, após 3 e 6 meses de participação no Programa, todas as mulheres foram reavaliadas. Resultados: nos 3º e 6º meses, as alunas apresentaram melhora nos itens que avaliaram a saúde geral. Apesar de estatisticamente não significante, clinicamente a satisfação com a vida progrediu favoravelmente durante a participação no Programa.

Serie: Lifelong learning book series, vol. 19, This chapter focuses on the ways by which EU lifelong learning agenda, specifically the guidelines for basic skills, has been interpreted according to the Portuguese realities, at national and local levels. We suggest that basic skills for all, as intended in the framework of the European area of lifelong learning, have somewhat loose roots on the cultural and civic dimensions of education in a human and social development perspective. Competitiveness and social cohesion, the dual centrality of lifelong education and learning for Europe, stated in Lisbon Strategy, have been interpreted and translated in Portugal through a dynamic imbalanced agenda fed by two major strands: the prosecution of a social right for a long time in debt to adult population and a search for so-called employability and qualification, as a way to tackle Portuguese distance from European educational standards. According to these options that frame the EU agenda, this chapter also stresses the adults’ understandings of adult education which come out from the research findings presented later. The data analysis shows that these understandings are congruent with EU orientations; adults see adult education as a promise of a better life. Thus, given the inconsistency of lifelong learning, fulfilling this promise is a hard task to achieve., This paper was written within the research project “EDUQUAL - Educar e Qualificar: o caso do Programa Novas Oportunidades” (PTDC/CPE-CED/105575/2008) funded by the Foundation for Science and Technology (Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia - FCT - in Portuguese). In addtion, this article was developed with the support of Centre of Research in Education (in Portuguese CIEd), University of Minho, and also financed by National Funds by the FCT in the scope of the project Pest-OE/CED/UI1661/2011.

The relevance of the relationship between schools and families to foster educational success, and as a principle of the implementation of democratic practices, enhancing the promotion of equality, is, nowadays, more accepted, even though the building of this collaboration falls short of all speeches and intentions. The class director’s (CD) position provides a space in which this relationship can be solidified with the mediating role assigned to the CD being just one aspect of the triple function that characterizes that post. In this article, empirically based on a qualitative study, made up of interviews to CDs, we seek to analyze the latter’s representations on the participation of parents/guardians (PG) in the educational practices in schools. From their narratives, we propose an interpretation and a discussion that seek to discuss the relational complexity between the CDs and the Parents, which has as its origin the heterogeneity of their cultures, namely the social cleavage in the participation of families, and, also, the kind and levels of participation that are offered to or claimed by parents in the sessions organized by the CD

Taking as an empirical basis some of the data from a questionnaire applied to a sample of approximately eight hundred parents from three public secondary schools, this paper discusses how various categories of parents organise «hierarchies of excellence» through the «arguments for choice» that they prioritise when choosing their children’s school for entrance into secondary education (year 10 of schooling, equivalent to the year 4 of compulsory secondary education in Spain - ESO). The analysis of the data highlights that, in all segments of parents, a group can be found that attaches great importance to academic indicators; in addition, an unequal concentration of these groups was verified in the three establishments studied, which reflects a predominance of different types of public in each school. Thus, even though the importance attributed to the «arguments for choice» varies according to the educational level of the parents, in the cases studied the «hierarchies of excellence» are distinguished, above all, by the school variable., Tomando como base empírica algunos de los datos del cuestionario aplicado a una muestra de cerca de ochocientos padres seleccionados en tres centros públicos de enseñanza secundaria, en este artículo analizamos el modo cómo diferentes categorías de padres organizan «jerarquías de excelencia», a través de los «argumentos de elección» a los que dan prioridad cuando escogen el centro educativo, al pasar a la enseñanza secundaria en 10º curso (4º de la ESO). Del análisis de los datos destaca que, en todos los segmentos de padres, encontramos una fracción que concede gran importancia a los indicadores de naturaleza académica; verificamos, además, una concentración desigual de estas fracciones en los tres establecimientos estudiados, lo que refleja un predominio de diferentes tipos de público en cada escuela. De este modo, aunque varíe la importancia atribuida a los «argumentos de elección», según el nivel de estudios de los padres, en los casos estudiados las «jerarquías de excelencia» se distinguen, sobre todo, de acuerdo con la variable centro.

The “indirect effects” of the dynamics of globalisation in the field of education are visible both in the changes in the process of designing education policies and in the reconfiguration of education governance. Thus, where the Bologna Process is concerned, what seems to be on the agenda is a convergence with the model of market regulation, through the creation of mechanisms and bodies such as quality assurance and accreditation systems and agencies. In addition, the form of regulation determined by objectives represents a decisive development in processes of management of social and educational change in different sectors of education systems. The flagship-project of constructing a European Education Area and the lifelong learning paradigm appear to partake of the new legitimising myths that derive from the desire to envelop in the same sweep the planning of the physical, social and symbolic territory and the creation of subjects.