During the COVID-19 pandemic, the closing of educational systems was one of the most significant impacts, worldwide. It is important to assess how educational policies dealt with the challenges brought by the pandemic – successes and constraints, solutions to and impacts on equal educational opportunities. Focusing on the Portuguese case, we aimed to understand if measures taken in our country were effective to recover/maintain activities, offer quality and innovative education and create solutions to, at least, not exacerbate social differences during lockdown and after. We used a multimethod approach mobilising institutional reports and statistics from several sources and conducted semi-structured interviews to six School Directors (chosen to represent the diverse territorial differences of Portuguese public schools). Results show the impacts of the pandemic crisis and the efficacy of the policy measures. Students, teachers, and families had to deal with learning equipment, tools, and methodologies unknown to most of them, and the importance of home space and reference adults in young peoples’ lives. The difficulties in access to indispensable technological resources for each family, all sharing limited resources for education and telework. The increase of social differences between students (families) concerning resources and abilities. Finally, the determinant role of the local partners, particularly the city councils, in the entire process of dealing with the pandemic/lockdowns and impacts. To sum up, educational measures in Portugal were urgent and ambiguous, but not particularly helpful to mitigate the difficulties especially in disadvantaged territories and families.

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Risk society,Pandemic,Educational policies

• Sociology - Social Sciences