In EU the majority of the Ciganos continues to experience low educational attainment, high rates of school failure and drop-out and low rates of school completion.The National Study about Ciganos Communities (2014) covered all areas of continental Portugal, surveying 1,599 individuals concluded that only about 6% had completed the 3rd grade (9 years of formal education), while only 2.5% completed secondary or higher education. There are parallels between the present situation of Portuguese Ciganos and those experienced by Roma elsewhere in the EU. It is more a result of structural inequality than due to a lack of skills: a ?one-sided mismatch?.A recent qualitative study conducted by some members of the research team (2013-2015) found that in some neighbourhoods in the metropolitan areas of Lisbon and Porto it is still common for Ciganos to not complete compulsory schooling. Among the adults there was no example of continuing in formal education until 12th grade.Taking what has been said into consideration, our proposal?s main aims are:1)To identify and understand the trajectories of Cigano pupils attending secondary school in the metropolitan areas of Lisbon and Oporto, and their aspirations for access to higher education. We intend to do this by mobilizing an interactive, dynamic and procedural interpretive model involving six crossover levels to measure success.To this end, we intend to adopt an essentially qualitative methodology that uses research and participatory methods, in the belief that participatory approaches allow the local contexts to benefit from broader experiences, by linking research processes to academic researchers as well as to Cigano representatives and stakeholders. 2) The research phase will be followed by the development of a common curriculum that will provide vocational and 12th grade certification to young Ciganos who have dropped out of formal education.This proposed training will implement participatory actionresearch procedures in the ...

EmployALL aims to study the relationship of mutual dependence between employment and social protection. In the context of the Great Recession and the ensuing 'adjustment program' in Portugal, this interdependence manifested itself as an articulation of a crisis of employment with a crisis of social protection. The employment crisis involved an unprecedented rise of unemployment, wage decline and precarious work, which increased the burden on social protection. The outcome, aggravated by cuts directly affecting social protection, was a shortfall in the responsiveness of the system to new social vulnerabilities - a crisis of social protection. The two concomitant crises widened inequalities in diverse territorial contexts. EmployALL addresses the following research questions: 1) Which mechanisms connect employment (unemployment, precarious work and wage decline) to social protection (its capacity to respond to increasing demands), and to what extent the increased pressure on, and the social protection system shortfalls have contributed to augment risks in employment and unemployment? 2) To what extent is the articulation of the employment and social protection crises converging in the production and cumulative reproduction of inequalities, and how is this process to be reversed through public policies? The project will draw on an interdisciplinary methodological framework and will use quantitative and qualitative methodologies at different territorial scales. A structure of 6 work packages (WP) will be adopted. WP1 will be devoted to the theoretical mapping of the relations of mutual dependence between employment and social protection. WP2 will characterize the employment and social protection crises in Portugal, in the context of the EU, at various national territorial scales. WP3 aims to characterize the reciprocal impacts between the employment and social protection crises in the frame of the evolving financialized accumulation regime, with particular focus on how ...

Biographical research in sociology is usually carried out by means of in-depth interviews where people are asked to tell their life histories or experiences in a given stage of life and/or dimension of existence. Occasionally, secondary materials such as photographs, letters, timelines or life calendars are also used to complement the narrative. In both cases the focus is on first person testimonies, assuming that the information collected through these procedures provides a more direct and reliable access to the events and subjectivity of the life course. Much less explored is the possibility of reconstituting a biography not only in this way, but also on the basis of testimonies of third parties, specifically close people who can talk about the trajectories of the individual being analysed and about the relation they have with that person. What we intend to do in this project is precisely to understand how biographies can be reconstituted and analysed through multiple testimonies, using triangulation and comparison of sources of information. Mobilising a qualitative methodology, by means of biographical interviews, the aim is to comprehend how a person describes and ascribes meanings to her/his life, but also how close people perceive, present and interpret that biographical pathway. Twenty biographies will be analysed, each case being composed of the interview with the nuclear person and about four interviews with her/his family members, friends, colleagues or neighbours (of different kinship, generations, life contexts). In this way it is possible to combine each person's view of herself/himself and her/his biography with the perception that significant others have of those same experiences. Thus, it is intended to articulate an internal perspective with an external one on the same person and respective biography. This analytical strategy enables the study of the temporal, social and relational constitution of a biography, in line with the typical analytical fra...

The project is focused on five major areas over which the impacts of the crises will be more closely assessed: the initial education and training; the institutional paths for transition from school/training to work; adult education and lifelong learning; the transparency of qualifications and the articulation between the education and training systems; the structure of services and benefits aiming at guaranteeing universal access to the education and training systems.For each of these five areas, the following key dimensions of analysis are considered: (a) diversity and relative importance of available pathways within the system, (b) curricula; (c) human resources (d) budget and funding circuits; (e) the quantity and quality of physical spaces. Results indicators will be analyzed in all five areas, such as coverage and attainment.

This research project seeks to analyse and understand one particular aspect of the relationship between technology and society. Our aim is to examine how Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) are being integrated and used in schools and particularly in the teaching and learning processes in secondary education.

The aim of the study is to establish an analytical relationship between education and training policies, school organisation models, types of leadership and educational achievement/failure, analysing the institutional and organisational contexts in basic and secondary education and weighting their impact on the schools’ results (particularly in terms of levels of educational achievement/failure). It will also include an analysis of dropouts as a form of educational failure (although with different contours) or with regard to mechanisms used by schools to deal with it by, namely, referring students to alternative forms of learning.

This project aims to observe and analyze the way the current national program of complementary activities in primary school is being developed in five schools, considered positive examples, among the different actors involved (education regional offices, local authorities, teachers, students and families). The main purpose is to find out key-factors for the success in this program management. The knowledge about the central factors in these schools is important to identify procedures able to be transposed to other schools and, in broader terms, for the next policies in this domain.

The objective of this project is to establish a research programme focused on two interrelated aspects:an analysis of the relationship between family and work, on the one hand, and the dynamics of transition in this relationship, on the other.

To examine how young European men and women working in public and private sector workplaces negotiate motherhood and fatherhood, and work-family boundaries in the context of different national welfare state regimes, family and employer support.

Exploration of the factors that in the portuguese society contribute to the unequal division of paid labour between men and women. To understanding of male and female strategies concerning the division of paid and unpaid work as domestic work, childcare and elder care.