Luiza Cortesão

Critical inter/multicultural education and the process of transnationalisation: a view from the semiperiphery∗

Abstract In the first part of this paper the claim that education is the privileged mechanism for the preservation and affirmation of national identity is questioned in light of the transnationalisation process and some of the specificities of Portugal as a semiperipheral country (in the European context). In the second part, critical inter/multicultural education is considered in an epoch of globalisation as a challenge to the formation through schooling of national and minority identities. ∗ An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 13th World Congress of the International Sociological Association, Bielefeld, July 1994.

Professor: produtor e/ou tradutor de conhecimentos? Trabalhando no contexto do arco-íris sociocultural da sala de aula.

In this text after some epistemological and methodological comments, it is argued that, when working in a diversity of social and cultural contexts, and wanting learning processes to be meaningful to students, teachers will have to be more than knowledge translators. They also will have to be researchers. They will have to produce knowledge in order to adequately diversify the learning process through differentiation pedagogical devices. This is a text that reflects, enhance and cross contributions arising from previous works carried out mainly in collaboration with Stephen R. Stoer.

'School does not teach burying the dead': the complexity of cultural dialogue

This paper aims at decoding problems and meanings of situations that frequently occur in socio‐educational contexts, while concurrently showing real difficulties to establish intercultural dialogue. It is a critical reflection on fieldwork developed in Mozambique in 2006 by Cardoso Cuale. Cuale was a Primary School teacher who attended a research and assessment training course. This text analyses the work he presented at the end of the training period, and describes cultural conflicts he identified in a school in rural Mozambique. Those conflicts occurred between educational proposals, students, administrative authorities and traditional authorities in consequence of the application of the new Basic Education curriculum, and show difficulties to establish an intercultural dialogue.

Teachers and 'resting routines': Reflections on cognitive justice, inclusion and the pedagogy of poverty

This article highlights how school can work as a ‘pressure cooker valve’, contributing to a ‘controlled management’ of processes of exclusion. Schools, sometimes without realizing it, simultaneously promote some practices that lead to greater inclusion and support, and others that effectively result in the exclusion of minorities. This reasoning is illustrated, in the Portuguese context, with data collected in situations that demonstrate not only the different cultural, social and economic backgrounds of the students, but also the homogenizing rigidity and exclusionary effects of the curricula and teachers’ practices. In particular, this paper points to the negative and exclusionary impact of a limited range of teaching and learning opportunities. We affirm the growing social and cultural heterogeneity of students attending Portuguese schools, but argue that they are educated in a system, and by teachers, that usually promote a dominant culture, established as the only one that it is important to acquire. We propose that a true dialogue can only exist if teachers and students soften the barriers between their cultures in order to interact.

The State, Curriculum and Teacher Education in Portugal: 1926‐1981

Summary This article looks at the contribution that education in Portugal has made to national development, particularly during the period 1926‐1981, through teacher education. In order to carry out this task, the article traces the changing relationship between the state and the curricula of teacher education and also characterizes generally changes in the education system during the aforementioned period. Finally, additional attention is given to changes in the organizational characteristics of the teacher education process particularly during the decades of the 1970s and the 1980s.