01-12-2021


31-03-2023


Covid-19 had an overwhelming impact on education systems globally, making necessary, although not always possible, a rapid adaptation to the online regime, given the impossibility of maintaining face-to-face teaching activities for long periods of time. The pandemic crisis has accelerated trends towards digitalisation of and in education, in a process experienced very unevenly in different countries and regions, with huge and different challenges being posed to educational systems and schools.

In this context, the knowledge of different experiences and the reflection around the constraints and difficulties experienced, as well as the diversity of responses found, particularly in rural, remote or less favoured/poor areas, in a situation that required a quick adaptation and that posed huge challenges at the level of accessibility, the uses of technologies, their mobilisation in the educational work and the identification or creation of alternative educational work modalities, assumes an enormous importance.

The research project "'Digital Education' in Rural and/or Peripheral Areas: Challenges and Experiences" falls within the existing Cooperation Agreement between the Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences of the University of Porto (FPCEUP) and the Organisation of Ibero-American States for Education, Science and Culture (OEI), Office in Portugal.

The project's main objective is to contribute to a greater knowledge, reflection and problematization about the challenges, potentialities, risks and current limits of Digital Education, specifically in peripheral and rural areas of African Portuguese-speaking Countries (PALOP) and Latin American (AL) countries, through the identification of the measures adopted at the level of the respective educational systems and the knowledge and analysis of very different situations existing at local level and in primary schools (1st to 6th grade). Recognizing the enormous importance of teachers and the role they have assumed and still assume, also in times of pandemic, the development of the research will pay particular attention to the "Voice of Teachers", their testimonies about their experiences and their perceptions and expectations about the Digitalization of Education.

Research team
Teresa Medina (PI)
Júlio Santos (Co-PI)
Alexandra Sá Costa
Elisabete Ferreira
Henrique Vaz
João Caramelo
Carla Cardoso (research assistant)


Organização de Estados Ibero-americanos para a Educação, a Ciência e a Cultura (OEI), Programa Regional de Formación en Democracia y Ciudadanía


Alexandra Sá Costa

Elisabete Ferreira

Henrique Vaz

João Caramelo

Teresa Medina

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