Ciências da Educação | Artigos em revistas internacionais / Papers in international journals
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- Competências digitais e igualdade de género em educação: desafios e práticasPublication . Abelha, Marta; Almeida, Ana Patrícia; Neves, Claudia; Nobre, AnaO artigo, desenvolvido no âmbito do projeto DIGENDER2PALOP, analisa de que forma docentes dos ensinos básico e secundário em Angola, Cabo Verde e Guiné-Bissau integram competências digitais nas suas práticas pedagógicas e promovem a igualdade de género. A investigação adoptou uma abordagem mista, recorrendo a inquéritos por questionário e à realização de grupos focais, com enfoque na apropriação de um toolkit pedagógico e nos desafios enfrentados. Os resultados demonstram que persistem desigualdades estruturais no acesso à educação e às tecnologias. Conclui-se que promover a literacia digital crítica, aliada à formação docente contínua e a políticas educativas sensíveis ao género, é essencial para uma cultura escolar mais inclusiva e equitativa nos contextos africanos de língua portuguesa.
- Learning democracy in early education: aesthetic and embodied pedagogies in teachers’ professional learningPublication . Neves, Claudia; Pažur, Monika; Oliveira, Juliana Gazzinelli de; Almeida, Ana Patrícia; Abelha, Marta; Abrantes, PedroThis article examines how aesthetic and embodied pedagogies support teachers’ professional learning for democratic practice in early childhood and primary education. Drawing on a Participatory Action Research (PAR) design within the Aesthetic and Embodied Learning for Democracy (AELD) strand of the AECED project, the study analyses four cases developed in Portugal and Croatia. The Portuguese cases involved a 50-hour online professional learning course structured around PAR phases, while the Croatian cases consisted of face-to-face workshops using storytelling, drama, movement and reflective dialogue. Data were generated through reflective writings, forum contributions, visual documentation and observational records. Thematic and interpretive cross-case analysis showed that aesthetic and embodied pedagogies supported teachers in developing greater sensitivity to children’s perspectives, stronger awareness of participation as a relational and ethical practice and greater willingness to co-construct pedagogical decisions. Findings suggest that professional learning can function as a democratic inquiry shaped by relational and institutional conditions. The article contributes to democratic education scholarship by foregrounding teacher professional learning as a key site where democracy is enacted and interpreted.
- Private and vocational schools from oversight to insight: external evaluation of schools and self-evaluation in dialoguePublication . Seabra, Filipa; Sousa, Joana; Álvaro, Maria HelenaIntroduction: External School Evaluation and School Self-Evaluation are increasingly understood as complementary mechanisms within national regulatory architectures, yet the way this relationship unfolds in types of schools only recently incorporated into state inspection frameworks remains under-researched. This study examines that relationship within Portuguese private and vocational schools, both of which entered the third cycle of External School Evaluation in 2018. Methods: The corpus comprised 47 inspection reports published between 2018 and 2025 (24 from private schools and 23 from vocational schools), analysed using quantitative document content analysis. Qualitative inspectorate judgements for the self-evaluation domain were converted into a discrete five-point numerical scale to perform non-parametric comparative tests, while specific institutional strengths and areas for improvement were coded inductively to trace longitudinal trends. Results: The statistical findings reveal a steady upward trend and progressive convergence between global inspection averages and self-evaluation scores across the cycle, suggesting that external judgements operate as a comparative baseline that stabilises internal routines. Vocational schools achieved significantly higher scores on both indicators and relied predominantly on the European Quality Assurance Reference Framework for Vocational Education and Training, which correlated positively with evaluative outcomes. Conversely, private schools relied on self-designed models, displaying lower procedural systematicity but a more pronounced textual focus on curricular and pedagogical dimensions. Discussion: Rather than establishing a direct causal link, the findings suggest that external evaluation operates as a discursive mechanism that consolidates internal administrative regularities, while the translation of evaluative evidence into concrete classroom practice persists as a complex institutional challenge. Reconciling managerial compliance with shared pedagogical reflection remains a critical condition for sustainable school development.
- Teaching biology and geology as reflective decision-making: designing an asynchronous online professional development course for in-service science teachersPublication . Almeida, Patrícia Albergaria; Abelha, MartaProfessional development in discipline-specific pedagogy remains a persistent challenge in teacher education, particularly when addressed in fully online, asynchronous settings with in-service practitioners. This article describes and theorises the design of Specific Didactics of Biology and Geology, a 14-week professional development course offered at Universidade Aberta, Portugal’s public open distance university, within the framework of the institution’s Pedagogical Model. The course targets in-service Biology and Geology teachers enrolled in the first year of a teacher professionalisation programme. Rather than reporting a completed impact evaluation, the article offers a theoretically grounded, design-oriented practitioner inquiry account of course design, early implementation reflections, and transferable design principles for asynchronous online teacher professional development. Its conceptual core is the framing of teaching as didactic decision-making, integrating reflective practice, didactic transposition, and experiential learning theory into a coherent design philosophy that places participants’ existing professional experience at the centre of learning. The article argues that subject-specific professional development can be meaningfully designed in a fully asynchronous online format, provided that the e-activity repertoire is epistemically varied, experientially anchored, and coherent with the pedagogical principles under study. Three structural features are discussed in detail: a two-tier activity design distinguishing non-assessed preparatory tasks from assessed e-activities; a deliberately diverse typology of digital activity formats, each serving a distinct cognitive and social function; and an integrative culminating task, the Professional Development and Pedagogical Action Plan, developed progressively across the final three weeks of the course. By describing the course design in sufficient detail to enable adaptation to comparable contexts, the article contributes to research-informed approaches to online teacher professional development. It highlights the pedagogical potential of asynchronous learning environments when they are designed not as simplified substitutes for face-to-face provision, but as coherent spaces for reflective, situated, and discipline-specific professional learning.
- Teachers’ negotiation of democratic risk and professional agency in early years and primary education: insights from participatory research ecologiesPublication . Neves, Claudia; Pažur, Monika; Oliveira, Juliana Gazzinelli de; Abrantes, Pedro; Abelha, Marta; Almeida, Ana Patrícia; Rimac Jurinović, Maša; Domovic, Vlatka; Drvodelic, MajaThis article examines how teachers in Early Years and Primary Education experience and negotiate democratic risk when enacting democratic pedagogy. Drawing on qualitative data generated through participatory research in Portugal and Croatia within the Horizon Europe AECED project, the study analyses reflections, dialogical exchanges, and collaborative inquiry processes from 33 participants across four cases. Democratic risk is conceptualised as situations in which teachers perceive that democratic pedagogical action may expose them to uncertainty, loss of control, professional scrutiny, or relational tension. The findings identify three interrelated themes: (1) democratic risk as pedagogical, professional, relational, and institutional exposure; (2) the negotiation of legitimacy and accountability; and (3) participatory research as a professional learning ecology supporting teacher agency. Rather than functioning merely as a barrier, democratic risk emerges as an inherent condition of democratic pedagogy and a key site for the development of professional judgement and agency. The article contributes to research on democratic education by introducing democratic risk as an empirically grounded analytic concept and by demonstrating how teacher agency is enacted relationally within professional and institutional contexts. It further highlights the role of participatory research in supporting teachers to navigate the tensions inherent in democratic practice.
- What makes school a happy place? development and validation of a measurement scale for studentsPublication . Gramaxo, Patrícia Leonor; Dias, Álvaro; Abelha, Marta; Dutschke, Georg; Seabra, FilipaIntroduction: In addition to academic results, schools are increasingly mandated with promoting student happiness, contributing to their well-being, instilling a sense of belonging, and fostering the development of social and emotional skills. Thus, it is essential to have validated instruments to assess the overall happiness of schools. This article proposes a scale that assesses school happiness, as perceived by students. Methods: Data was obtained through questionnaires administered to 2,452 students (for the exploratory factor analysis (EFA), data were collected from 1,242 respondents, while a separate sample of 1,210 participated in the confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). The model was tested using structural equation modeling techniques. Results: The results made it possible to identify three main components: Supportive Relationships and School Climate (People), Learning Processes and School Experience (Process), Learning Environments and Inclusion (Place). Discussion: The article discusses the development and validation of an instrument that can be applied to students as one of the means of assessing a school’s general happiness level and identifying key aspects to improve to increase a school’s level of happiness. Implications for future research on happy school evaluation are discussed, since schools will now have at their disposal tools that enable them to assess a happy school from the perspective of teachers, parents, and pupils.
- “Lifting the Roof” with democracy-as-becoming: the potential of aesthetic and embodied learning for innovating governance in educational institutions a pattern approachPublication . Spahn, Lea; Weber, Susanne Maria; Jääskeläinen, Pauliina; Mpamhanga, Karen; Neves, Claudia; Oganisjana, Karine; OliverContemporary societies face interrelated crises that strain democratic institutions, social cohesion, and ecological conditions. This article approaches governance as a relational, processual practice that can be reconfigured in and through aesthetic and embodied approaches. Drawing on qualitative material generated in the three-year Horizon Europe/UKRI project Transforming Education for Democracy through Aesthetic and Embodied Learning, Responsive Pedagogy and Democracy-as-becoming, the analysis revisits case studies with a focus on aesthetic and embodied learning in adult, professional, and organizational learning settings to ask what patterns of governance innovation towards democracy-as-becoming become visible when democratic learning is enacted as embodied, situated practice. Empirically, the study draws on data generated through case trials in six European countries with a participatory action research design and unfolds five patterns with analytic vignettes that illuminate repeating moments, processes and situations of embodied governance. Conceptually, the article is informed by an epistemic shift towards commoning, framing governance as embedded in concrete practices of possibility rather than bounded procedures. A pattern-oriented re-reading identifies recurring situations in which governance shifts are enacted through power-sharing, transforming dialogue, relational well-being, and holistic learning. These shifts appear as changes in individual stance, collective practice, and institutional culture, including processes of unlearning hierarchy and reworking institutionalized power relations. By articulating “promising patterns” grounded in situated educational practice, the article links democratic renewal to common(ing) activities and collective imagination in education.
- Promoção da igualdade de gênero na educação com tecnologias digitais: revisão sistemáticaPublication . Mouraz, Ana; Borges, Irina; Seabra, Filipa; Vieira, Cristina PereiraEsta revisão da literatura insere-se num projeto que visa promover a igualdade de gênero por meio do desenvolvimento de competências digitais em contextos escolares de Angola, Cabo Verde e Guiné-Bissau. O estudo analisa de que modo as iniciativas de educação digital contribuem para a equidade de gênero em diferentes contextos socioculturais, articulando três dimensões inter-relacionadas: igualdade de gênero, competências digitais e práticas pedagógicas. Com base no protocolo PRISMA, a seleção sistemática resultou num corpus de 58 artigos. Os resultados mostram que o acesso, o uso crítico e a criação com tecnologias digitais são fatores centrais para promover a igualdade. Contudo, a persistência de barreiras socioculturais evidencia que o acesso, por si só, não garante a equidade de gênero.
- Democracy-as-becoming in early years and primary education: aesthetic, embodied, and digital pedagogical ecologiesPublication . Neves, Claudia; Pažur, Monika; Oliveira, Juliana Gazzinelli de; Abrantes, Pedro; Abelha, Marta; Almeida, Ana Patrícia; Slovacek, Katarina AladrovićIn a context of growing democratic fragility, education is increasingly called upon to cultivate democratic participation, relational responsibility, and civic engagement. However, dominant approaches to education for democracy continue to privilege cognitive knowledge and procedural participation, often overlooking the embodied, affective, and relational dimensions through which democracy is first encountered and lived. This paper advances the concept of democracy-as-becoming to examine democratic learning in Early Years and Primary Education, where democratic relations are enacted through everyday pedagogical encounters rather than transmitted as abstract knowledge. The study draws on a transnational Participatory Action Research (PAR) programme conducted within the Aesthetic and Embodied Learning for Democracy-as-Becoming (AECED) project across multiple European contexts. Focusing on four cases in Portugal and Croatia, the paper presents a crosscase analytical synthesis of professional learning processes in which educators participated as co-researchers. These cases combined aesthetic, embodied, narrative, and digital pedagogical practices across online and faceto-face professional learning environments. Data included reflective writings, online discussions, observation notes, and visual and narrative artefacts generated through iterative PAR cycles. The analysis identifies three interrelated pedagogical ecologies—embodied, aesthetic–narrative, and digital/hybrid—through which democratic becoming is enabled, negotiated, and constrained. Across these ecologies, democratic learning emerged through relational grounding, co-creation, and embodied participation, while also being shaped by institutional conditions and perceptions of pedagogical risk. The paper contributes a data-informed conceptual model of democratic becoming grounded in cross-case analysis, highlighting how democratic sensibility develops through the interaction of relational, embodied, professional, and institutional dimensions. It concludes by discussing implications for teacher education, curriculum design, and research on democratic education, emphasising the need to recognise aesthetic and embodied pedagogies as core infrastructures of democratic life.
- Professores como líderes transformacionaisPublication . Rodrigues, Elisabete; Henriques, Susana; Almeida, Ana PatríciaEste artigo surge na sequência de um estudo realizado sobre a implementação do Programa "A Aventura da Vida" nas escolas do 1.º Ciclo do Ensino Básico (CEB) dos municípios que integram a Comunidade Intermunicipal da Região de Leiria (CIMRL). Centra-se na liderança docente como motor da mudança educativa e do impacto na capacitação e aplicação do programa, sublinhando a relevância da educação para a saúde na escola. A investigação integrou a análise dos projetos educativos dos Agrupamentos de Escolas que participaram no estudo, a análise documental dos relatórios da CIMRL e o estudo das ações de capacitação, bem como a aplicação de inquéritos por questionário. Os resultados destacam os professores como líderes transformadores, no contexto de uma estratégia educativa apoiada pela parceria entre a Fundación EDEX, a CIMRL e a Universidade Aberta. Destacam a importância da formação contínua dos docentes e o reforço dos recursos pedagógicos, evidenciando-se percepções positivas, práticas inovadoras e melhorias no bem-estar e nas aprendizagens dos alunos. Estas conclusões reforçam a importância de investir em programas colaborativos, práticos e fundamentados, que promovam inovação, inclusão e sucesso educativo. O Programa constitui um exemplo concreto de políticas públicas eficazes, com resultados sustentáveis, onde os professores assumem um papel central na construção de uma escola mais inclusiva, saudável e inovadora.