Virgílio Borges Pereira is Full Professor of Sociology at the Department of Sociology of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Porto, where he teaches since 1994, and a researcher at the Institute of Sociology of the University of Porto - a R&D Unit of the national scientific and technological system that he directed between March 2010 and April 2015. Since 2003, he collaborates with the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Porto, where he teaches in Masters and PhD courses. Since 2008, he is an associate researcher at the Center of Studies in Architecture and Urbanism of the University of Porto.
He has a first cylce degree (‘Licenciatura’) in Sociology (1993), a Masters course in Sociology: local power, development and social change (1997), a PhD (2002) and Habilitation in Sociology (2009), by the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Porto (FLUP). He has specialized in the sociology of social classes and symbolic-ideological practices, paying special attention to the sociological legacy of Pierre Bourdieu's work. Taking as a reference the realities of the city of Porto, the regions of Vale do Ave and Vale do Sousa, he has privileged the construction of social spaces, spaces of lifestyles and position takings, and the analysis of the respective relations with the physical space. In the continuation of these analyses, he has studied, combining sociological and historical approaches, the action of dominant social groups, intellectuals, institutions, and the relationships established in these positions with less privileged groups. Housing policy - and its urban and social effects - and the activity in construction industry have also been areas of his research. He has supervised and co-supervised Masters dissertations, PhD theses and Post-Doc researches in the fields of sociology, architecture and urbanism, and history.

He is a member of the editorial board and a correspondent of several journals. Among these are the journals Cidades, Comunidades e Territórios, Sociétés Contemporaines, Espaces et Sociétés, and Biens Symboliques/Symbolic Goods. He is a member of the steering committee of the journal Sociologie du travail. 

BORGES PEREIRA, V. (2024). Renewing sociological research on the urban with Bourdieu. In M. A. MARTÍNEZ (Ed.), Research Handbook on Urban Sociology (pp. 120-134). Cheltenham, UK; Northampton, MA, USA: Edward Elgar.

BORGES PEREIRA, V. (2023). “Que força é essa?”. Dualismo, dominação, desigualdade e recomposições sociais aceleradas na compreensão sociológica da estrutura social portuguesa contemporânea. Análise Social, 58(249), 738–765.

BORGES PEREIRA, V., RODRIGUES, V., COELHO, M. I., & LEMOS, T. (2022). Class formation and social reproduction strategies in the Portuguese construction industry. Elements for a relational sociological analysis. In C. Hugrée, Étienne Penissat, Alexis Spire, & Johs. Hjelbrekke (Eds.), Class Boundaries in Europe. The Bourdieusian Approach in Perspective (pp. 116-136). Routledge.

BORGES PEREIRA, V. (2022). Olivier Chadoin, Sociologie de l'architecture et des architectes [recensão].  Sociologie du Travail. 64 (3) doi:10.4000/sdt.41532

RAMOS, R., PEREIRA, V. B., ROCHA, M., & SILVA, S. D. (Eds.) (2021). Hidden in Plain Sight: Politics and Design in State-Subsidized Residential Architecture. Zurich: Park Books.

PEREIRA, Virgílio Borges (Org.), (2020). Em (Re)Construção: elementos para uma sociologia da atividade na indústria da Construção em Portugal. Porto: Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto, Projeto de Investigação (FCT) Novos Terrenos para a Construção.

RAMOS, R., PEREIRA, V. B., ROCHA, M., SILVA, S. D. (Coord.) (2019). Contexto, Programa, Projeto: Arquitetura e Políticas Públicas de Habitação. Porto: Faculdade de Arquitectura da Universidade do Porto, Projecto de Investigação (FCT) Mapa da Habitação.

PEREIRA, Virgílio Borges; SIBLOT, Yasmine (dir.), (2019). Classes sociales et politique au Portugal. Pratiques du métier de sociologue, Vulaines-sur-Seine, éditions du Croquant, collection "Champ social".

PEREIRA, Virgílio Borges; QUEIRÓS, João; SILVA, Sérgio Dias da; LEMOS, Tiago (2018). "Casas económicas e casas desmontáveis: génese, estruturação e transformação dos primeiros programas habitacionais do Estado Novo", in AGAREZ, Ricardo (Coordenador), Habitação: Cem anos de políticas públicas em Portugal, 1918-2018, Lisboa, IHRU, pp. 82-117.

QUEIRÓS, João; PEREIRA, Virgílio Borges (2018), "Voices in the revolution: Resisting territorial stigma and social relegation in Porto's historic centre (1974-1976)", The Sociological Review, 66:4, pp. 857-876.

PEREIRA, Virgílio Borges (2017), “Society, space and the effects of place: theoretical notes and results of a sociological research on social housing in the city of Porto”, in M. MENDES, T. SÁ & J. CABRAL (eds.), Architecture and the Social Sciences: inter- and multidisciplinary approaches between society and space, Dordrecht, Springer, pp. 99-120.

Coordination of ongoing research projects:
RURALITIC: RUral Revival: A Life In The Inspirational Countryside, local coordination by Virgílio Borges Pereira; general coordination by  Gilles Laferté (INRAE, France), funded by the European Commission (Horizon Europe).

Some recent conferences:
- Virgílio Borges Pereira, Révolutions urbaines sous le regard des sociologues portugais et venus d'ailleurs, Colloque "Fascisme, résistances et révolution, circulations entre le Portugal et la France. Autour des 50 ans du 25 avril 1974", Paris, Centre de Recherches Sociologiques et Politiques de Paris - Cultures et Sociétés Urbaines, site Pouchet du CNRS, 23 de maio de 2024.

- Social Space, the (Re)Production of Physical Space and the State: Theory and Relational Methods for a Sociological Research Programme on the City of Porto, Portugal. METHODS CONFERENCE. Relational Spatial Methods. CRC 1265 Re-Figuration of Spaces - Technische Universität Berlin, Universität Potsdam, Université Paris Saclay. Technische Universität Berlin, Berlin, 16 de setembro de 2022.

- "The city of Porto, the political regime and the social effects of public housing (1933-1974): general properties and return to some reading possibilities", Affordable Housing. The 20th Century Legacy. Learning from the past. What future? Challenges and Opportunities, International Congress, Porto, Faculty of Architecture of the University of Porto | Casa da Música, 2019-05-07.

- "Les usages du numérique, les pratiques éducatives et la lecture: résultats d'une enquête auprès des étudiants de l'Université de Porto", Colloque international "Les étudiant.e.s au travail. Les outils de la sociologie du travail au service de l'analyse des apprentissages, Nantes, Université de Nantes/Centre Nantais de Sociologie, 2018-11-29.

- "The working classes in France and Portugal. A sociological comparison 'from below'", Rising Inequalities, NOS-HS workshop/SCUD network, Paris,Centre CNRS Pouchet, 2018-10-05, com Yasmine Siblot.   

- "The Portuguese field of construction industry", Rising Inequalities, NOS-HS workshop/SCUD network, Paris, Centre CNRS Pouchet, 2018-10-04, com Bruno Monteiro.

- "Stigma monograph launch: rethinking stigma", Panel Discussion with Imogen Tyler, Tom Slater, Jenna Loyd, Virgílio Borges Pereira, João Queirós and Joanna Latimer – chaired by Stephen Crossley, The Sociological Review, Undisciplining - Conversations from the Edges, The Baltic, Gateshead, UK, 20/06/2018.

- "Discussão: partir de olhares externos", O Ensino das Teorias Sociológicas em Debate, Simpósio da Escola de Sociologia e Políticas Públicas, Lisboa, ISCTE-IUL, 28/05/2018.

- "Classes, espaço e simbolização: um percurso de investigação sociológica", Seminário Luso-Moçambicano sobre Desenvolvimento de Investigação, Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (Portugal) / Fundo Nacional de Investigação (Moçambique), Maputo, Hotel Glória, 2018/02/27. 

- "La tension au c½ur du quotidien. La structuration matérielle et symbolique des relations sociales dans les régions défavorisées de l’espace social au Portugal", Colloque International "Vous Avez Dit 'Populaire'?", Paris - La Sorbonne, Amphithêatre Durkheim, 2018/01/11 e 12.  

- A conference (in French) about the sociology of social classes in Europe can be seen here:
Classes Sociales en Europe - Journées d’étude organisées par les réseaux Classes sociales, inégalités, fragmentations, Méthodes, Sociologie des élites et Justice sociale de l’AFS.

A documentary (in Portuguese) about a research can be seen here:
O Compasso - part 1
O Compasso - part 2
O Compasso - part 3
O Compasso - part 4
"O Compasso - filme de uma pesquisa", de Regina Guimarães e Saguenail (Helastre, 2008).

A talk about Time and Sociology (in Portuguese) can be seen here:
Tempo e Sociologia (TVU, FCUP, FLUP, 2017).

An interview about class sociology in Portugal (in Portuguese):
Os estudos de classe na sociologia em Portugal, Plural - Revista de Ciências Sociais da Universidade de São Paulo, 21 (2), 2014. An interview with Virgílio Borges Pereira conducted by Edison R. E. Bertoncelo.

Courses taught: 
Anthropology of Space, Master in Architecture, FAUP.
Fundamentals of Modern Culture: physical space, social space and institutional dynamics, PhD in Architecture, FAUP.