EduTransfer – Learning from diverse educational settings

 

 

EduTransfer – Learning from diverse educational settings: Transferability of promising practices in the 2020 Horizon

 

Funding

FCT - Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology

 

Project reference

PTDC/CED-EDG/29886/2017

 

Institution

CIIE/Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences of the University of Porto

 

Principal Researcher (PI): Helena C. Araújo
Co-PI: Eunice Macedo

 

Research team

Helena C. Araújo (PI)
Eunice Macedo (Co-PI)
Sofia Marques da Silva
Pedro Abrantes
Cosmin Nada
Sofia Almeida Santos
Elsa Guedes Teixeira (Research fellow)
Alexandra Carvalho (Research assistant)

 

Duration

41 months
Start date 1-10-2018
End date 28-2-2022

 

Description

This participatory research analyses the possibilities of transference between educational institutions, of promising educational practices that take as basis problem based learning, as a cooperative learning methodology. Therefore it involves mainstream schools and out of school educational institutions, the alternative learning arenas.

The starting point of the project is the concern about the need to find more concerted forms of action in education, which involve the different actors in promoting a sense of belonging and commitment to education by young people and teachers, promoting greater success in contributing to the reduction of the social and individual problem of early school leaving and early leaving from education and training; dimensions on which the project's relevance rests.

Also relevant is the creation of spaces within the educational institutions, where young people have the opportunity to exert their citizenship and crucial competences, by participating in the identification, decision making and action to improve their life contexts. The innovative dimension of the project emerges from the strong articulation between researchers, teachers and young people, in the construction of participatory practices for solving real problems, identified by the young people themselves, and that result in community involvement, allowing a detailed analysis by the research team with the contribution of the participants.

The research standing point is based on a sociological perspective that argues for the need to go beyond the identification of problems and to collaborate in the construction of measures that contribute to their resolution. In a coherent articulation with the theoretical principles of a sensitive research that engages in the processes it observes and analyses, ethnography is the main method of collecting and analysing data, complemented by focus group discussion, which stands on the participants’ voices. The use of these complementary methods will allow the matching of the voices of the researchers, more sustained on ethnographic observation, and the voices of the actors, who are heard and taken into account in the research.