Abstract

The dilemmas and challenges faced by public schools for the development and deepening of democracy—particularly regarding the continuation of studies for all within compulsory education and their greater participation in the school community—are urgent. Public schools are increasingly attended by communities with specific cultures: cultures of different ethnic origins, different social backgrounds, and groups with varying life experiences regarding gender relations. How can schools become spaces of more significant and better participation and find ways to prevent school dropout and exclusion when they face a diversity of expectations, pathways, and experiences from the students who attend them?

In this complex network of interrelations and diverse processes, understanding the perspectives of young people and children involved in school educational processes becomes more prominent. What experiences have they lived through? What pathways have they followed and continue to follow? What knowledge is most relevant from their point of view? What intersections can we find in the ethnic, social class, and gender diversity present in the various perspectives? How do they position themselves about the educational experiences they undergo? What knowledge and reflection could the production of collective and individual biographies offer for the reformulation of school practices? How can reflections based on shared knowledge from these perspectives relate to the construction of new practices and new professional knowledge?

This project, by proposing to address, both theoretically and empirically, the construction of biographical pathways of social, ethnic, and gender diversity in schools and communities, aims to focus on both the school and the communities as heterogeneous realities. It will take place in basic education and adult education schools, as well as in communities and neighbourhoods on the periphery of Greater Porto and Northern Portugal, where some of the highest dropout rates are recorded (particularly in the Tâmega and Douro regions, as shown by recent studies, cf. Rosa and Martins 2003, Canavarro et al. 2004, Sarmento et al. 2000).

CoPIn

PIV – Inclusion Policies and Voices: Diversity, Gender and Intersectionality

Funding

FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia
Referência: POCI/CED/57938/2004

Principal Investigator

Helena C Araujo

Partners

CIIE / Faculdade de Psicologia e de Ciências da Educação da Universidade do Porto FPCEUP Portugal
Direcção Geral dos Assuntos Consulares e Comunidades Portuguesas DGACCP Portugal