| Summary: |
With this project we intend to develop an itinerary with a selection of innovative pedagogical experiences and educational
institutions of reference throughout the twentieth century in Portugal. Based on the school form concept (ViG94) we will seek to
define a significant set of initiatives as a research object, aiming to construct partial or global alternatives to that model, which
resulted in both the creation of schools that sought to present themselves as different as well as the development of crosspedagogical
experiences that aspired to a certain exemplariness. In this research we will adopt a historical perspective without
refusing an approach to the educational present. We will consider the entire twentieth century in order to capture the roots of some
of those experiences, but emphasising the period from the middle of that century to the transition to the twenty-first century due to
its specificity, the implications it has in contemporary educational practices, and the relative lack of studies about that moment,
which provides good prospects regarding the research's originality and topicality. Although not in the centre of our concerns, we
cannot fail to have as the first major reference the innovative initiatives implemented in Portugal during the first decades of the
twentieth century, particularly during the republican period, under the inspiration of the New Education international movement.
From the 30s, with the institutionalization of the Portuguese authoritarian regime, the ideological environment clearly became more
adverse. From the 50s and 60s of the twentieth century there is the intensification of the pedagogical renewal movement with the
creation of an important set of instructions that were presented as alternatives to traditional pedagogy. New Education inspiration is
particularly joined by Freinet's pedagogy, then rediscovered and embodied in the Modern School Movement, along with other
currents which circulate  |
Summary
With this project we intend to develop an itinerary with a selection of innovative pedagogical experiences and educational
institutions of reference throughout the twentieth century in Portugal. Based on the school form concept (ViG94) we will seek to
define a significant set of initiatives as a research object, aiming to construct partial or global alternatives to that model, which
resulted in both the creation of schools that sought to present themselves as different as well as the development of crosspedagogical
experiences that aspired to a certain exemplariness. In this research we will adopt a historical perspective without
refusing an approach to the educational present. We will consider the entire twentieth century in order to capture the roots of some
of those experiences, but emphasising the period from the middle of that century to the transition to the twenty-first century due to
its specificity, the implications it has in contemporary educational practices, and the relative lack of studies about that moment,
which provides good prospects regarding the research's originality and topicality. Although not in the centre of our concerns, we
cannot fail to have as the first major reference the innovative initiatives implemented in Portugal during the first decades of the
twentieth century, particularly during the republican period, under the inspiration of the New Education international movement.
From the 30s, with the institutionalization of the Portuguese authoritarian regime, the ideological environment clearly became more
adverse. From the 50s and 60s of the twentieth century there is the intensification of the pedagogical renewal movement with the
creation of an important set of instructions that were presented as alternatives to traditional pedagogy. New Education inspiration is
particularly joined by Freinet's pedagogy, then rediscovered and embodied in the Modern School Movement, along with other
currents which circulated internationally. As in the case of the new schools, some of the main dimensions of school form were now
broadly questioned using diverse strategies, such as the resort to alternative ways to organize both time and school space. Forms of
flexible curriculum were also analysed, the assignment of a more active role to students in the construction of their own knowledge
or the transformation of the teachers' roles. Even in the official field, the 60s and 70s witnessed some efforts of educational
modernization, which led to experiments where the innovative pedagogical will was present, as in the case of TV-school or Modern
Mathematics experiment. After 25th April 1974 the democratization of the Portuguese society revealed a favourable context for the
intensification of the Portuguese's schooling. Despite the outline of some innovations that sought to undermine the nuclear concepts
of school culture, most schools kept, according to its critics, too tied to the invariants of school form and unable to introduce real
changes in that structure. This fact kept indulging the desire to develop clearly differentiated projects. Escola da Ponte is perhaps
the most paradigmatic example, but from this point of view what characterizes the transitional period from the twentieth century to
the twenty-first century is the huge variety of experiments and the pedagogical hybridism which characterizes them, although some
of the main innovative traditions are still present. In short, this project proposes the inventory of these innovative institutions and
experiments within the indicated time span, and the preparation of detai |