The State of Educational Research in Portugal

Sofia Silva de Marques
  Sociedade Portuguesa de Ciências da Educação (SPCE)
Spring 2012 

The Portuguese Society of Educational Sciences was founded in 1990 through the initiative of a group of teachers and researchers from Higher Education institutions of Portugal.  It is a scientific and professional public utility association, aggregating people with educational functions and that, through different activities and situations, contribute toward the relevance of Educational Sciences as a field of production and dissemination of knowledge, reflection and intervention. The exchanges and the cooperation between peers, involving professionals from different educational areas and levels, in Portugal and in other countries, namely, Latin America and Portuguese speaking countries, affords the SPCE a sui generis context allowing it to promote and value dialogue between fields and institutions, through different identities, cultures and experiences. SPCE aims to continue to be a space for analysis of problems and synergies to think about projects with plural methodologies, defining ethical compromises, deepening scientific and pedagogic knowledge and assuming Education as a fundamental human right. The most relevant aims of SPCE are:

1. To contribute to raise and solve educational questions and problems, through researching and teaching.

2. To stimulate the cooperation between researchers, teachers and institutions in any domain of education in Portugal and abroad.

3. To promote the quality of research and teaching in Educational Sciences

4. To disseminate Educational Sciences among persons and institutions directly interested in education and the population in general.

5. To disseminate relevant information on Education and Educational Sciences among its members;

6. To promote spaces for turning visible scientific production in educational field, namely by organizing seminars and conferences.

SPCE has more than 300 hundred members, academics and practitioners, from Portugal and Brasil, representing different educational fields and interests. New delegations had been created in different Portuguese regions. Furthermore, SPCE had lately invested in improving connections with other European and Latin-American associations.

SPCE owns a journal in education «Investigar em Educação» (Researching in Education). A new editorial board is organizing a new edition of the journal with a new editorial line, aligned with contemporary challenges in education, both at national and international level. This journal, which will be a peer review journal, will be open for national and international proposals, being, however, more concerned with educational research at national level.

Besides this publication SPCE, since its foundation, has been supporting members’ scientific production. This is visible, not only through several publications from relevant Portuguese educational thinkers, as António Nóvoa, as through the promotion of two awards: the Sérgio Grácio Award (ended); and the SPCE/Porto Editora Award.

SPCE, concerned with current economic and social changes that have been affecting Portugal, is paying a particular attention to the new educational challenges, namely those addressed to the public school, universities and to the constraints that research in Social Sciences and Education is facing.