CLEAR – Constructing Learning Outcomes in Europe: A Multi-Level Analysis of (Under)Achievement in the Life Course

The CLEAR research project responds to the Horizon Europe’s Call HORIZON-CL2-2021-TRANSFORMATIONS-01-04: Addressing poor learning outcomes in basic skills and early school leaving at national, regional and local level in Europe and seeks to better understand the factors that affect the quality and the construction of learning outcomes in Europe.
The specific approach of CLEAR is centred on the process of constructing learning outcomes, which we interpret as the result of manifold intersecting factors and people: institutional arrangements, spatial and socio-economic determinants, discursive and socio-cultural influences, as well as individual experiences, dispositions, cognitive and psycho-emotional abilities.
CLEAR’s overall aim is to examine the combination of multiple factors shaping learning outcomes and thus affecting their quality. Based on a better understanding of the processes of constructing learning outcomes, CLEAR inquiries into the impact of policies to boost achievement and tackle underachievement, design participative activities at local level that spark innovative policy solutions and increase social upward mobility for young people.

Educational equity through PISA: results and discourses

Equity has been and still is one major challenge for educational systems around the world. Since its inception, in 2000, OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) aims at providing countries and policy makers with comparable quality information and analyses about educational systems to inform their decision-making process. The present project is developed around three (related) broad objectives, all hinging the overarching relation between equity and countries’ participation in PISA.The first objective departs from the fact that, 20 years after PISA’s first wave, the literature is yet to address a crucial question: have participating countries improved their equity levels since they started to take part in PISA? Furthermore, is it possible to identify dimensions related to the systematic improvement or decrease in equity? To answer these questions constitute the first objective of this project. We propose to achieve this by analysing the longitudinal evolution of countries’ PISA equity indicator, i.e., the proportion of performance variance that can be explained by each student’s economic, social and cultural status (ESCS). This will allow an assessment of how well countries have been at integrating PISA’s results and lessons and improving their equity, as well as to identify countries (if any) that have been more (or less) successful in curbing the proportion of performance explained by the students ESCS. Consequently, we propose to probe for meaningful predictors of countries changes in equity levels within an array of existing variables. The second objective takes advantage of the robustness of PISA’s assessments and sampling, using it as tool for gauging the impact of policies that aim to increase equity in Portugal. The importance of this exercise is paramount if one takes notice that in the Portuguese context, the effectiveness of equity policies is seldom (if ever) assessed longitudinally by objective data, as one can testify by the lack of such evaluations of the national compensatory education programme (TEIP), which is, countrywide, the most comprehensive programme that clearly aiming at equity improvement. Through desk research and literature review, as well as through expert consultation via interviews and/or focus groups, we expect to thoroughly identify implemented equity policies in the Portuguese context and their expected impact. The confrontation of the expected impact with the actual change in equity levels in the last 20 years (resorting to the PISA analysis regarding Portugal) represents an invaluable opportunity to assess and discuss equity’s policy effectiveness.

The third objective steams from the recognition that the worldwide circulation of PISA’s results is mediated by processes of selection, reinterpretation, and re-contextualization by key actors that ultimately reconfigure the existing discourses about it in the public sphere. Thus, an additional goal of this project hinges on how PISA and its impact on equity are framed and (re)interpreted by primal stakeholders, namely policy makers, the scientific community and the media (regular and social). We pursue this objective by first interviewing (individually or through focus-groups) experts on the subjects under study, i.e., equity and/or PISA, exploring how the interviewed regard the importance (or its lack) of PISA for equity promotion, as well as the mechanisms through which the PISA operates and impacts the educational field. Furthermore, we also propose to analyse how news about PISA and equity have been framed and discussed in (Portuguese) regular and social media. Results will map the perspectives and discourses that circulate in the general and social media about this topic, providing yet another layer to understand how PISA impacts and is used within educational equity debates, beyond PISA results and reports.

Societies can only stand as democratic and fair to the extent to which they can get rid of their inequities. We

Art and Citizenship Laboratory

Responsible for the FPCEUP in the project Art and Citizenship Laboratory. Funded by the program Cidadãos Ativ@s - EEA Grants (Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway) managed in Portugal by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in partnership with the Bissaya Barreto Foundation (total funding: €62,314.18). This project proposes the development of artistic creation and civic participation spaces aimed at 70 young people in conflict with the law (serving educational guardianship measures and in prison), especially those who show failure and dropout trajectories, promoting the activation of social and personal skills for inclusion and employability. Duties: evaluation of the intervention developed by PELE - Espaço de Contacto Social e Cultural, coordinating entity of the project, and pedagogical coordination of the project.

Policies Supporting Young People in their Life Course. A Comparative Perspective of Lifelong Learning and Inclusion in Education and Work in Europe

Most European Lifelong Learning (LLL) policies have been designed to create economic growth and, at the same time, guarantee social inclusion (EC 2010). First, we will study how different LLL policies are compatible with each other in terms of their orientations and objectives and how each policy considers the needs of ‘young adults’. Second, we will research the intended and unintended effects of policies on young adults. In this regard, we will look into relevant social developments such as life course de-standardisation processes and into an emerging new political economy of skills. Third, we will generate new knowledge about regional and local policymaking, with particular attention to actors, dynamics, and trends. By focusing on their regional/local context, we will elucidate the interaction and complementarity of LLL policies with other sectors of society, thus contributing to a better understanding of current fragmentation and discrepancies, in order to set parameters for future decision-making support systems.
The project will first contribute new knowledge of the impact of LLL policies on young adults’ life courses, yielding insights on the conditions, strategies, and necessities for policies to become effective. In addition, it will provide insights on the innovations and potentials they unlock, in particular with view to informal and non-formal learning to better address vulnerable groups. Second, the project contributes to a better understanding of the structural relationships and functional match between education/training and the labour market sectors. Third, the project will provide a thorough review of regional policies and initiatives in the countries studied, laying bare distinct dynamics and trends, but also mismatches and redundancies. In particular, the project aims at identifying successful programmes in terms of sustainable solutions in integrating labour market with, social inclusion as well as their transferability to other contexts.

Mediation in Matosinhos (Construction of a Training-Intervention Device for the Creation of Mediation Teams and Mediation Services in the City of Matosinhos).

This project aims to set up teams of mediators (technicians from the city council and citizens living in Matosinhos) to provide mediation services in specific housing estates.

Integrating Cultural Diversity in Higher Education.

This project aims to contribute to the reform of teaching and learning in higher education and to improving the retention and success levels of migrant and ethnic minority students. HE4u2 will develop an integrated pedagogical approach to the intercultural dimension of existing curricula, in-service training courses for lecturers and policy recommendations.

Constructing AcTive CitizensHip with European Youth: Policies, Practices, Challenges and Solutions

The proposal will investigate young people’s views of the EU and of their role in building the EU through their participatory practices at EU, national, regional and local levels. These issues will be examined from an interdisciplinary perspective (Political Sciences, Sociology, History, Media and Communications, Education, Psychology) as building blocks for a new and groundbreaking conceptualization and theoretical model of youth active citizenship in the EU, including “psychological” citizenship and practices of social and political engagement.
To achieve this aim, the proposal will adopt an innovative approach combining traditional theoretical hypothesis testing with empirical-phenomenological analysis and allowing to integrate the perspectives of young people, as co-producers of knowledge, with those of researchers and other stakeholders. A wide range of research methods will be used including documentary and media analysis, interviews and focus groups, a cross-national longitudinal study, ethnographic case studies of participatory practices and a socially innovative intervention. These quantitative and qualitative methods will allow to develop a new, robust and cutting-edge conceptualization of youth active citizenship in the EU and new evidence-based multilevel integrated theoretical model.
This approach will offer a multifaceted understanding of the different factors influencing the perspectives of “native EU citizens” and the ways in which they engage in society, leading to groundbreaking changes in the ways in which youth engagement, participation and active citizenship are understood. Moreover, the project will provide policy makers with a set of evidence-based ideas, recommendations and instruments to integrate young people’s perspectives into various areas of policy-making. The findings of the project will thus fully cover the challenges, scope and impact of bringing the EU closer to its young citizens and boosting their participation.

UNIBILITY – University Meets Social Responsibility

The project aims to strengthen universities' relations with their local communities through activities based on their social responsibility. Specifically, it will develop strategies for universities to actively contribute to increasing their social responsibility among students and researchers by developing and implementing learning projects with an impact on the local community in the field of environmental, social or economic research, and develop a University Social Responsibility curriculum, which will be used to train university management members and their students.

Jogos Sérios no Ensino Superior: impactos, experiências e potenciais/Serious Games in Higher Education: impacts, experiences and potentials

The project proposed here focuses on how students and teachers relate to video games and serious games, particularly in educational contexts, the construction of instruments (a comprehensive grid) and the development of methodologies that support better uses of these games as educational tools and the response to gaps identified in the literature when studying their impacts (in this case, the impacts of dimensions relevant to citizenship education and socio-political development).

EDUPLACES. Locais Educadores: práticas, vozes e percursos de educação inclusiva / EDUPLACES. Local Educators: practices, voices and paths of inclusive education.

This research aims to answer the following questions: (i) what processes and factors, logics of action and partnerships (institutional, community, local) contribute, from the point of view of the actors involved, to building inclusive education practices? (ii) what processes and factors (social, institutional, biographical) support the interruption of the negative spiral of failure and early school leaving and favour the remobilisation of young people to learn and build successful academic paths? Previous research carried out by members of the team has shown that co-operative involvement (of teachers, students, families), empowerment, mediation and democratic quality are processes that cut across socio-educational practices which, in adverse social contexts, contribute to building successful school trajectories.

ECOAR

I lead the participation of FPCEUP in the ECOAR project: Employability and Skills through Art. Project funded by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation's Active Citizenship Programme (total funding: 83,266.00). This is a project to assess and certify soft skills aimed at employability through artistic tools. The project's beneficiaries are young prisoners aged between 18 and 30 at the end of their sentence. Duties performed: evaluation of the intervention developed by PELE - Espaço de Contacto Social e Cultural, the project's coordinating organisation, and pedagogical coordination of the project.

CIDEU Construção e Cidadania Europeia na Escola / Construction and European Citizenship at School

The "Construction and European Citizenship at School" project is an initiative of the European Commission, mediated by the Jacques Delors European Information Centre (CIEJD). The project was developed by the Centre for Educational Research and Intervention (CIIE). Its aim is to gauge the knowledge of secondary school students in the scientific, humanistic and vocational fields on various aspects of European citizenship - the process of building the European Union, its institutional architecture, its competences and decision-making processes, as well as the exercise of European citizenship. It also aims to promote formative moments with educational content and activities that allow young people to deepen their knowledge and acquire a new sense of European citizenship. To this end, this project is embodied in a set of more specific or more transversal tasks - which go through three phases: 1) Diagnostic study; 2) Educational action; 3) Impact assessment.

O peso escondido das desigualdades sociais nos rankings escolares / The hidden weight of social inequalities in school rankings

The main aim of the project is to understand the extent to which the socio-economic conditions of a school's students determine its ranking in the rankings. To this end, we will construct (indirect) indicators on the socio-economic structure of the school fabric, either by analysing the school support granted by the state to each school, in the case of public schools, or by the amount of tuition fees charged to students, in the case of public schools. These indicators will help us understand the hidden weight of social inequalities in school rankings.

Pressionar play para activar: vídeo jogos e a educação para a cidadania de jovens / Press play to activate: video games and citizenship education for young people

The rapid changes we have seen in recent decades, which are particularly relevant when we look at the younger generations, the so-called digital natives, have led many to question how (and if) citizenship education (for these young people) could benefit from utilising the innovative and interactive features of video games and new network interaction technologies. Even considering the positive results that have been found in research into the educational potential of these tools, there is a clear lack of application-based, educationally informed, real-world studies and in particular research centred on the processes involved in producing change (of civic learning and development) in the experiences of young gamers (including the social activities linked to this experience). The project presented here aims to contribute to understanding how civic engagement can be promoted through these games, and how they (and the social interactions between players in face-to-face and online contexts, hetero- or self-managed) can favour young people's civic education and development. Knowing this is crucial to designing effective and transferable ways of intentionally using activities like these in citizenship education contexts.

Social Information Processing in Psychopathy: Patterns of Interaction and Neurophysiological Correlates in the Ultimatum Game

Psychopathy is characterized by a cluster of affective traits, interpersonal and behavioural patterns such as disregard for the rights of others, pathological lying, egocentricity, lack of empathy, violation of social norms and antisocial behavioural style.
While abnormal patterns of social cognitive functioning have been described on laboratorial situations, these data are not consistent and seem at odds with what should be expected given the behavioural patterns of psychopaths on natural settings. The experimental study on the patterns of social interaction in psychopathy through economic games, such as the Prisoner's Dilemma (PD), has globally shown that cooperation is the predominant behavioural pattern, even for psychopaths. Together with results displaying no abnormalities on social cognitive tasks, this conclusion seems inconsistent with recurrent findings in psychopathy of structural and functional brain abnormalities in structures involved in social cognition. This proposal is based on a dual-process conception of neurocognitive functioning, in which strategic and explicit reasoning (type 2) is described as a process relying on working memory, unlike implicit processes (type 1). However, we suggest that, when predicting the performance of participants on social cognitive tasks, besides considering the type of processes utilized, one should consider the interaction between each type of process. In this model, type 1 and type 2 processes may work together towards the same outcome (synergetic interaction) or may conflict and thus compete in the production of the response (antagonistic interaction).The present project is designed to test an interactive dual-process model of social cognition applied to psychopathic individuals, as described above. To this end, two versions of the Ultimatum Game (UG), in which synergy/antagonism are manipulated, will be used, while participants high and low on psychopathy scores are disabled from using type 2 processes (via working memory overload), or forced to use such processes (via gain maximizing instructions).

Projecto Estratégico - UI 167 - 2011-2012 / Strategic Project

The strategic project that CIIE presents to 2011-2012 is framed by a central focus on financed research projects and the dissemination of their outcomes as well as the training of young researchers PhD, Ma & Post-doctoral in national and international network. _There is common concern with inequalities and exclusion in education, concerns clearly expressed in recent European policy documents. Education is considered in its formal and non-formal forms. Adult education, teacher and educators training, disabilities and inclusion studies, minorities and intercultural, citizenship and gender studies, childhood and youth studies are recognised Education Sciences scientific areas in this strategic project. The project is developed along four main scientific areas 'programatic areas': AREA 1 - Politics, Policies & Participation; AREA 2 - Training, Knowledge and Education & Work Contexts; AREA 3 - Citizenship, Diversity & Historical Knowledge; AREA 4 - Innovation, Creativity and Local Development. This strategic project is centered on developing a sound articulation between research and postgraduate courses MA in Education, PhD in Education Sciences in UPorto as well as w/ other higher education institutions on the basis of international and national networks.Briefly, it may be stressed that this is a Strategic Project centered in the development of the research of its 15 Projects financed by external agencies to the Centre and the training/supervision of more than 50 PhD theses, and mainly in the dissemination of their outcomes submitting papers to international journals cited in ISI Web of Knowledge, SCOPUS & ERIH.

RankDes: Rankings Escolares e Desigualdades / School Rankings and Inequalities

The School Rankings and Inequalities project aims to identify and analyse the relationships between the places occupied by schools in the rankings and a set of indicators - cultural, economic, territorial - that characterise the schools and/or the students who attend them. This will allow us to address one of the classic themes of the sociology of education: the relationship between school performance and social inequalities. Before moving on to the sociological analysis itself, the first step of the project consists of a technical analysis of the procedures for drawing up the rankings with a view to identifying their strengths and weaknesses, their internal consistencies and inconsistencies.

Processes Influencing Democratic Ownership and Participation

This project will examine the processes which influence democratic ownership and participation in eight European states. It will draw on the disciplines of Politics, Sociology, Social Policy, Psychology and Education to examine macro-level contextual factors (including historical, political, electoral, economic and policy factors), proximal social factors (including familial, educational and media factors) and psychological factors (including motivational, cognitive, attitudinal and identity factors) which facilitate and/or inhibit civic and political engagement and participation.

The research will be ground-breaking in incorporating the psychology of the individual citizen within its scope, and it will be distinctive in addressing the psychological processes through which political, societal and social factors have their effects upon citizens’ civic and political engagement and participation.

Young people, women, minorities and migrants will be examined as four specific groups at risk of political disengagement. The research will focus on the differences, as well as the overlap, between civic and political engagement, and on both direct and representative participation.

An innovative multi-level process model of civic and political engagement and participation will be constructed, which will explain how and why different forms and interpretations of democratic ownership and participation develop or are hampered amongst citizens living in different European countries and contexts, with particular attention being paid to the relevant phenomena at regional, national and EU levels.

Appropriate stakeholders at regional, national and EU levels will be involved in all stages of the work, to ensure that the research addresses issues of direct concern to these stakeholders, and to ensure that the policy implications and recommendations which emerge from the research meet the needs of these stakeholders and are disseminated appropriately to them.

Acção Local no Combate à Pobreza e à Exclusão Social / Local Action in the Fight Against Poverty and Social Exclusion

Developed during the European Year for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion in twelve municipalities in mainland Portugal, this study sought to understand how local players (local authorities, social networks, private social solidarity institutions, non-governmental organisations, local development agencies, etc.) organise themselves and act in the fight against poverty and social exclusion. The guiding question of the research was: "How do local actors do what they do?". The final report, published as a book, includes, as requested by the funding organisation, a set of recommendations for political decision-makers.

Mediation in the Community

This project aimed to characterise the local consequences of the current fragmentation of the macro-devices of social and legal regulation, as well as to understand the processes through which young people from disadvantaged areas develop territorial forms of deviant behaviour. As a research and intervention project, developed in partnership with ADILO - the Lordelo do Ouro Integrated Development Agency - it included the creation of a conflict mediation office that offered free mediation services to the community. The team included members with initial training in Education Sciences, Sociology, Psychology, Social Work and Law. The project included two Research Integration Fellows, who were later integrated into the research team itself.

Mediation: actors, training and professions

In Portugal, as in other European countries, the production of social cohesion appears to be a central issue, and it is in the name of this social cohesion that a set of policies has been developed that have generally translated into a discursive valorisation of the local as a device for reducing social conflict. Mediation thus emerges as an issue around which consensus tends to be generated, while at the same time it is possible to discern a more security-orientated perspective of social reproduction. This project is part of the perspective of the transformative potential of recreating social relations and deepening participatory democracy.
The empirical work focuses on case studies in the five areas covered by the project: educational, organisational, legal, environmental and social. This empirical research will be combined with a study of the social policies developed over the last 10 years.

Vivências, Percursos e Produção em Ciências da Educação: contributo para o conhecimento de uma experiência em formação e investigação / Experiences, Paths and Production in Educational Sciences: a contribution to the knowledge of an experience in training and research

This project arose from the desire and need to study Education Sciences at the Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences at the University of Porto and to contextualise them in relation to other higher education contexts in the same field, with the aim of contributing to the construction of visibility and the unity and identity of scientific knowledge in education. The aim is thus to analyse not only the effectiveness, but above all the meaning and forms of life that are produced in the degree. In this sense, and due to the wide-ranging nature of the project, it was divided into three analytical dimensions: (A) Search for and professional insertion of graduates in Education Sciences, (B) Students' daily lives in the Degree in Education Sciences and (C) Scientific production in Education Sciences.

Consumos problemáticos de drogas em populações ocultas / Problematic drug use in hidden populations

This project, empirically based on interviews obtained through snowball sampling, aimed, on the one hand, to problematise the notion of problematic drug use and, on the other, to reveal populations and ways of using drugs that often escape the discourse on drugs and the researchers' own gaze.

As crianças dos saberes e os saberes das crianças - as crianças, os saberes e o Estado, uma abordagem sociológica / Knowledge about children and children's knowledge - children, knowledge and the State, a sociological approach.

This project aims to understand, on the one hand, the process of social construction of childhood, and on the other, how children and childhood are experienced and understood by children and adults in their multiple social relationships. In this sense, the aim is to critically analyse the relationship between different scientifically legitimised knowledges, different forms of state and citizenship and children's access to this social category. The ruptures and continuities between the political expression of their rights and their realisation are ob