Portugal’s education system has evolved greatly over the last five decades of democracy (1974-2024). Teacher education has also accompanied such a movement which is visible in research and publications in the field. Amongst other issues, inclusion has been identified as a key feature. In fact, Portugal’s inclusive education framework is among the most comprehensive of OECD countries (OECD, 2022). The same report highlights the programmes, resources and support structures developed in the Portuguese context “to meet the needs of all students and to promote educational equity and inclusion more broadly”. In 2018, following the publication of Profile of the Student at the End of Compulsory Education (12 years), – which identifies the set of principles, values and competencies for curriculum development – two key policy documents were issued: Curriculum Autonomy and Flexibility (Decree-Law nº55) and Inclusive Education (Decree-Law nº54). The former stipulates a set of principles and orientations according to which schools are granted greater autonomy to manage the school curriculum. In turn, the Decree-Law nº54 focuses on Inclusive Education and is based on the notion that all students have learning potential, as long as they receive adequate support. This is achieved through a multilevel approach which includes universal measures, selective measures and additional measures. These policy initiatives are important to promote diversity, equity and inclusion in Portuguese schools. Issues of flexibility, autonomy and collaboration among the stakeholders are key in this context. This comprehensive framework has implications for teacher education for equity and diversity. In fact, a new policy for teacher education was issued in November 2023 (Decree-Law nº112/2023). While the main reason for this restructuring process stems from the need to solve the problem of teacher shortage, the new policy stipulates inclusive education as one of the topics to be covered in teacher education curriculum. Although teacher education for inclusion has been identified internationally, there is room for improvement in this field (e.g. Florian & Camedda, 2020; Alves, 2020). In this paper, an analysis of the macro-level of the policies in Portugal is explored focusing in particular on teacher education for equity and diversity following the recent publication of the new policy. A look at the meso level is also included in order to explore how institutions are dealing with the new policy taking into consideration the perspective of the stakeholders, namely programme directors and teacher educators. Implications of the findings for teacher educators’ development are discussed.

Alves, I. (2020). Enacting education policy reform in Portugal: The process of change and the role of teacher education for inclusion. European Journal of Teacher Education, 43(1), 64-82. Decree-Law no. 112/2023, Diário da República, 1.ª série, N.º 231, 29th November 2023 Decree-Law no. 54/2018, Diário da República, no. 129/2018, Series I from 2018-07-06, 2918-2928. https://data.dre.pt/eli/dec-lei/54/2018/07/06/p/dre/pt/html Decree-Law no. 55/2018, Diário da República, no. 129/2018, Series I from 2018-07-06, 2928-2943. https://data.dre.pt/eli/dec-lei/55/2018/07/06/p/dre/pt/html Florian, L., & Camedda, D. (2020). Enhancing teacher education for inclusion. European Journal of Teacher Education, 43(1), 4-8. https://doi.org/10.1080/02619768.2020.1707579 OECD (2022), Review of inclusive education in Portugal, Reviews of National Policies for Education, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/a9c95902-en.