Vocational schools in Portugal began their activities in 1989, but other forms of education influenced the impact of the creation of the current configuration to varying degrees. According to Martinho (2006), industrial education made it possible to rethink the education system in Portugal, firstly to bring the country into line with European educational standards and then to enable it to train staff who were essential to an industrial society with an impact on economic development. The industrial schools fulfilled the mission of training technical staff for the industries, also enabling the qualification of some young people who, for economic reasons, had to access the labour market without long academic training. Despite these advantages, they experienced the contradiction of being a less prestigious form of education than high school, which is why, after 25 April 1974, they were challenged and reconfigured (Alves, 2000; Pascoal, 2002; Afecto, 2022). Considering the latest study carried out by Costa, Leite & Monteiro (2023), one of the findings revealed that industrial education had a major influence on the creation of vocational schools, but in a more inclusive, better distributed, and less discriminatory way (Azevedo, 2008). Based on this background, the aim of this research is to understand the contributions that industrial education advocated and transferred to the current vocational education policy and the possible influences that this modality had during the molding of the policy to create vocational schools (Portugal, 1989). The study also aims to investigate other aspects from a historical point of view, namely issues related to the negative social image commonly associated with vocational education, and whether it has its origins in industrial schools. The main theoretical references mobilized for the study arise, as previously highlighted, from the very nature of the problem, the objectives and research questions, as well as the researcher's own epistemological positioning. The context of the investigation, in this case professional schools (PE) and vocational education in other educational institutions, was based on texts by Azevedo (2008; 2017), Doroftei (2020) and Barbosa (2023), which allowed justifying the interest of the study and understand the locus of the research as well as guide the possible theoretical framework. The analysis of this research is based on the perspective of the Whole School Approach (WSA), we use the Reference Framework of Skills for Democratic Culture, volume 3, published by the European Council (2018c), Alves & Varela (2012), Dewey (1976, 1997), Freire (1987), Rosvall & Nylund (2022) and Branco (2014). The theoretical framework defined for the analysis in the study also draws on the conceptual framework of Young (2010) and Baker et al. (2009) on issues of equality, including equity in access to education, considering this as “indispensable for the full exercise of capabilities, choices and freedoms in an information age” and for the “exercise of global citizenship”. The challenge stands out as equal access to educational paths (Lappalainen, Nylund, & Rosvall, 2019), maintenance in these respective paths and possibilities of continuity in the next path (job market; higher education; others). To what refer to Social Justice, the framework mobilises the concepts of Fraser (2002), as it links two dimensions of the social order, the dimension of distribution and the dimension of recognition, a situation reaffirmed by Sampaio & Leite (2016) when refer to teaching and learning in their democratic dimension, with the challenge being fair distribution.

In methodological terms, the research design is configured as a case study of a descriptive and interpretative nature (Yin, 2018). To answer the research questions of the present study, we will use a documentary analysis and an exploratory interview. The literature review carried out within the general scope of the doctoral program allowed us to improve the theoretical framework and specify the main areas to explore and helped us identify the main influences of Industrial Education for the current configuration of current vocational education in the Portuguese context. Among the documents analysed are the archives of Portuguese industrial schools, however, the main source of information were archives of industrial schools that are available for public consultation, in this case the northern region of the country. The procedure was complemented with an exploratory interview with a privileged interlocutor. The research was carried out from February to December 2023. The theoretical framework served as a basis for both the design of the research instruments and the analysis of the data collected. The approach used in this study allowed, in general, the identification of contributions and trends of industrial education in current vocational education. The data was analysed using NVivo software.

The results of the study are expected to broaden the discussion in the academic community about vocational education, identifying the “baggage” that passed from industrial education to vocational education in Portugal. It is also intended to bring to the debate different points of view regarding the “success” and sustainability of the current policy, giving special focus to issues related to social resistance which, according to Doroftei (2020), remains in educational ecosystems. Considering that the study is ongoing, we highlight the following preliminary results: from a positive point of view, industrial education enabled technological inclusion (currently digital inclusion); the modernization and adaptation of buildings with updated equipment and resources; encouraged the use of spaces dedicated to the acquisition of knowledge (schools) to disseminate skills that went beyond theory (practical component); enabled coordination between schools and local businesses; set a precedent for the recognition of several professions that are currently present in Portugal's National Qualifications Catalogue (CNQ). From a negative point of view: we highlight the fact that Industrial Schools were created only to professionalise, depriving these students of the possibility of pursuing higher education studies, leaving them linked only to operational activities; the majority of industrial education students came from lower social classes, namely males; the courses were mostly exclusive to men and contained sexist terms such as “need for physical strength” in their requirements; exclusively technical and practical curricula; the articulation of companies and factories with industrial schools was focused on profit through the “free” training of qualified labour; lack of subjects for the development of psychosocial skills in the common curriculum; concern with governmental status within European frameworks and not with students' personal development and community involvement/empowerment.

Afecto, Maria Carlota Pontes (2022). O contributo das Escolas Industriais no desenvolvimento regional: Um estudo de caso. Dissertação de Mestrado. Escola de Engenharia da Universidade do Minho. https://repositorium.sdum.uminho.pt/bitstream/1822/83349/1/Disserta%C3%A7%C3%A3o_Carlota%20Afecto.pdf Alves, Luís Alberto Marques (2000). O arranque do ensino industrial no Porto (1884-1910). Revista da Faculdade de Letras, História, 3, v. 1, 67-81. Azevedo, Joaquim (2018). Relançar o ensino profissional, trinta anos depois. ELO 25 - Revista do Centro de Formação Francisco de Holanda, 25, 125-141. http://hdl.handle.net/10400.14/25674 Costa, Richelme, Leite, Carlinda, & Monteiro, Angélica. (2023). Ensino profissional em Portugal: motivações e desafios da conceção à atualidade. E-book IV Seminário Internacional CAFTE / XIV EIFORPECS, Porto (no prelo). Doroftei, Alexandra (2020). Cursos de aprendizagem e equidade no campo educativo: um estudo sobre representações, reconhecimento e imagem social do ensino profissionalizante de jovens em Portugal. Tese de Doutoramento. Faculdade de Psicologia e de Ciências da Educação da Universidade do Porto. https://repositorio-aberto.up.pt/bitstream/10216/127812/2/407228.pdf Lappalainen, Sirpa, Mattias Nylund, and Per-Åke Rosvall. 2019. Imagining Societies through Discourses on Educational Equality. European Educational Research Journal, 18 (3), 335–354. doi:10.1177/1474904118814140 Martinho, António Manuel Matoso (2006). A criação do ensino industrial em Portugal. Máthesis, 15, 53-81. Pascoal, Augusto (2002). Evolução do ensino profissionalizante: alguns contributos. OBSERVARE - Janus, 2002, 1-7. https://repositorio.ual.pt/handle/11144/1821 Rosvall, Per-Åke & Nylund, Mattia (2022). Civic education in VET: concepts for a professional language in VET teaching and VET teacher education. Journal of Vocational Education & Training, may, 2022. DOI: 10.1080/13636820.2022.2075436 Portugal. (1989). Decreto-Lei n.º 26/1989, de 21 de janeiro - Cria Escolas e Cursos Profissionais. Diário da República, 1.ª série - n.º 18. Ministério da Educação.