Nota de Apresentação

“A Escola em Análise: olhares sociopolíticos e organizacionais” foi o título escolhido para o número temático 12-13 da revista Educação-Temas e Problemas, por considerarmos que sintetiza, de algum modo, o conteúdo dos quinze artigos que compõem esta edição. Num desafio que reuniu a colaboração de professores e investigadores de várias universidades e centros de investigação nacionais e estrangeiros, a presente edição temática constitui uma oportunidade de reencontro de diversas escolas de pensamento académico e científico no campo da Organização e Administração da Educação e das Políticas Educativas que, ao longo dos anos, por circunstâncias várias, se foi progressivamente esvaziando e ganhando outros contornos e singularidades. Por questões de estruturação, os artigos apresentam-se distribuídos em torno de um conjunto de temáticas que organizamos em quatro grandes domínios: sistema educativo e regulação; políticas educativas e autonomia; avaliação, culturas organizacionais e rankings escolares; organizações escolares, desenvolvimento profissional e ação comportamental

Rankings escolares: "a César o que é de César, e a Deus o que é de Deus"

O presente artigo parte da problemática dos rankings escolares e explora metodologias e linhas de trabalho com o objetivo de apurar e analisar perfis de desempenho das escolas, medido através das taxas de conclusão do 9º ano. A análise dos dados é realizada com recurso ao método ‘árvores de decisão’, tendo por base uma amostra de 979 escolas, das quais se obteve informação relativamente a onze variáveis do contexto extraescolar e intraescolar e às taxas de conclusão de 9º ano em 2010/11. Os resultados obtidos segmentam as escolas pela região, pela média do número de anos de escolaridade das mães, pela densidade de mães ligadas a profissões de elevado status social, pela densidade de frequência de alunos economicamente carenciados, reavivando o debate em torno, por um lado, de uma certa revivificação das perspetivas da reprodução social e cultural e, por outro, da recusa à rendição a cenários onde o conformismo e o fatalismo têm acolhimento incondicional como se tudo estivesse à partida predestinado e nada pudesse afetar o rumo das coisas. Daí a necessidade e importância de repensar métodos e redefinir critérios na construção e divulgação de rankings escolares que projetem a qualidade do desempenho das escolas alicerçada no desafio da universalidade escolar sucedida e nos princípios da diversidade, equidade e justiça educativas

Promovendo o sucesso escolar: lições de práticas recentes

O que pode cada escola fazer para melhorar a qualidade das aprendizagens e dos resultados escolares dos seus alunos e simultaneamente não perder nenhum aluno constituiu o motivo condutor que inspirou o PMSE. Com efeito, este foi concebido e reconhecido como “uma resposta para combater os níveis de insucesso, concebida pelas próprias escolas e que promove efectivamente a diferenciação pedagógica, apostando na prevenção do insucesso ao longo do ensino básico, salientam-se os princípios do trabalho colaborativo e da interacção com centros de investigação e universidades, que apoiam as escolas na construção, monitorização e na avaliação do desenvolvimento deste dispositivo.” (Despacho n.º100/2010). A sua base matricial alicerça-se nos seguintes eixos orientadores: 1) o ciclo de estudos como unidade de referência; 2) tecnologia organizacional e organização da escola; 3) a orientação aos resultados escolares dos alunos com contratualização de metas relativas de melhoria e de progresso; 4) a voz às escolas

Social and Emotional Learning and Academic Achievement in Portuguese Schools: a bibliometric study.

Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) is an educational movement that is gaining ground throughout the world. We can define SEL as the capacity to recognize and manage emotions, solve problems effectively, and establish positive relationships with others. Research has demonstrated the significant role of SEL in promoting healthy student development and academic achievement. Extensive research confirms that SEL competencies: can be taught, that they promote positive development and reduce problem behaviors, and that they improve students’ academic achievement and citizenship. At the international level, several rigorous studies have identified programs and practices that promote SEL. In Portugal, however, no review has yet been published regarding the implementation of SEL programs. Such a study would elucidate the current panorama of SEL programs in Portugal. This study aims to identify research on SEL programs implemented in Portuguese schools and the relationship of those programs with academic achievement. To this end, we have consulted the following databases: Scientific Repository of Open Access of Portugal (RCAAP), Online Knowledge Library (b-on), and Web of Science (WoS). The criteria were: (a) all time frames; (b) publications in either Portuguese or English; (c) programs that developed socio-emotional competencies in Portuguese schools; (d) academic levels including elementary, middle, and high school and (e) students of regular education. Few publications on SEL programs implemented in Portugal were found, although the recent decade has witnessed an upsurge of interest in the topic, principally that arising from academic research.Fundação Calouste Gulbenkia

Emotional literacy program (ELP) – How to improve learning for well-being

This paper describes the Emotional Literacy Program (ELP) of the main project titled: “Promoting changes in learning - School Communities of Learning Gulbenkian XXI". The main purpose of this project is to promote the quality of student’s learning and their well-being, reflected through the quality of their school results, and manifests itself through the acquisition of basic knowledge within the formal curriculum and reasoning abilities (analytical reasoning, practical reasoning and creativity), resilience and responsibility. The main focus is the unique and the full potential of each student, a compromise between the basic pillars of knowledge and the fundamental pillars of citizenship in order to improve a culture of well-being. This project are implemented in three basic schools from the Portuguese Educational System, namely the 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th grade, and it starts with cohorts of students of the 3rd grade. The pilot program start in academic year 2014-2015 and it expires in July 2018, involving seven classes, in three groups of schools; 79 boys and 72 girls (median of age =9 years old). ELP is designed to promote emotion regulation, empathy and responsible decision making, and it is focalized in identification of basics emotions: joy, fear, sadness, surprise, anger, disgust, and explanation of these emotions in a story “The master of his nose”, from Álvaro Magalhães

Measuring children perceived social competence (PSC): studies of validity with children and young adolescents from elementary and secondary school

Social competence is a multidimensional construct, with emotional, cognitive and contextual dimensions, that plays a central role in the establishment of positive relations by individuals and its well. Applied to the developmental scope, social competencies play a central role, since they allow individuals to establish positive relationships with others, to adopt appropriate behaviours in social situations, among others. In this sense the assessment of social skills should have a central role to understanding developmental process. However, there is a lack of psychological scales concerning the understanding of social skills in children and young adolescents. In this sense, this study aims to present and discuss studies of validity and stability of a scale that evaluates children and young adolescents ‘perceptions about social competence to deal with interpersonal daily life situations and school situations. Participants were 842 children and adolescents’, 477 girls (56.7%) and 365 boys (43.3%), aged 7 to 16 years old (µ=11.50±2.00), attending the 4th (N=278), 6th (N=313), and 9th (N=251) grades, at elementary and secondary schools, in the northern, central and southern Portugal. These participants fulfill the Perceived Social Competence (PSC; [1]), which consists of five social situations, and express the perception of social performance into two subscales related with perceived poor or excellent performance in all of those situations. PSC was administered in two different assessment moments, with an intermission of one year. Results indicate psychometric qualities of PSC, namely, reliability (consistency and stability) and validity, in this sense the usefulness of PSC to acess social competence is proved. In addiction results also indicates gender differences with statistical significant differences in 6th grade, boys increase his perceived social competence and girls decrease, as if developmental and educational transitions from childhood to adolescence create a different way of looking to social competence in boys and girls. Implications are drawn to the development of future educational interventions that promote social competence of boys and girls. Implications are discussed for the development of educational and counseling interventions within scholar and familiar context

Development of socio-emotional and creative skills in primary education: teachers’ perceptions about the Gulbenkian XXI School Learning Communities Project

In recent decades, several authors have warned of the need to equip students with skills that include critical thinking, creativity, and emotional management. Emotions can facilitate or impede children's academic engagement, commitment, and ultimate school success since relationships and emotional processes affect how and what we learn. Teachers are the main emotional leaders of their students, and the foundation for promoting emotional balance within their groups is their ability to recognize, understand, and manage their emotions. The SEL approach defends that, as with academic skills, the development of social and emotional skills must be accomplished through explicit instruction. In the academic year 2014/2015, three schools in the Portuguese region of the Alentejo began an innovative 4-year project to promote change in learning. The main goal was to improve learning by promoting the acquisition of basic knowledge within the formal curriculum and to stimulate the development of analytical and practical reasoning skills, resilience and responsibility, as well as technological, emotional, social and creative skills. To this end, the research team created two programs to be developed in primary school, the Emotional Literacy Program (ELP) and the Creative Thinking Development Program (Flow) as well as a training program for teachers, Mediators for Well- Being Program. This article details a study analyzing the perceptions of primary school teachers who participated in the project. Data were collected by interviews and teachers' reflections were analyzed. Content analysis was chosen as the analytical technique as it is appropriate for treating qualitative data. The results show very positive impacts on the professional and personal development of teachers. Teachers reported improvements in student behavior, in the relationships between them and in the classroom environment. They further emphasized the need for teachers to receive more training in emotional education in their academic and in service education

Efeitos de variáveis cognitivas, emocionais e atitudinais no rendimento a matemática

Several predictive variables have been proposed to explain achievement on mathematics, allowing for the anticipation of complexity and the combination of multiple variables. Some studies indicate the multifactorial nature of mathematical performance, combining the cognitive and affective dimensions of the individual and the teaching and learning processes of mathematics. The main objective of this study is to evaluate the impact of cognitive, emotional and attitudinal variables on math performance. The results highlight the need to look at mathematics achievement in the 4th year of school using a multivariate approach