A Educação Social em Contexto Escolar

Uma Reflexão Sobre a Formação

Abstract

Social education arises from the convergence of several factors associated with the development of societies. At the same time, the school presents a set of challenges, resulting from the democratization of teaching (whose paradox lies in universal access but, simultaneously, in the difficulty of pedagogically managing masses of students due to their social and cultural heterogeneity), the configurations of current societies (how to adapt to the characteristics of the knowledge and technology society, globalization and multiculturalism) or problems that acquire particular visibility in societies (such as situations of risky behavior). In this sense, this study aims to reflect on the place of the school context in the training of a degree in social education in Portugal. To this end, we resort to documentary analysis of the study plans of the 1^st cycle training offers in public and private higher education. The results obtained indicate that, in the majority of the cases, the school context does not configure a particularly explicit and visible content in the study plans. These results give rise to reflection, considering that we can understand knowledge and skills in the school domain as transversal contents in training and, perhaps, reinforced by curricular internships that constitute a relevant component in all curricula. However, it also becomes pertinent to question whether these curricular plans - without explicit mention of formal education contexts - focus on the growing and emerging complexity of social problems experienced at school, so that future professionals have the knowledge and skills for interpretation, understanding, critical analysis and intervention, oriented towards social inclusion, equality and equity of all students.