Sofia Marques da Silva
Portugal
Sofia Marques da Silva is Associate Professor of the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, University of Porto, Portugal, and member of CIIE – Educational Research and Intervention Centre, coordinating the Research Community of Practice on Youth, Education, Diversity and Innovation. She holds a PhD in Educational Sciences since 2008 and has been doing research in the field of inclusion, diversity and youth, publishing at international and national level. Since 2010 has been involved in developing an online and offline ethnography with young people from border regions. She is the PI of the national project GROW.UP – Growing up in border regions in Portugal: young people, educational pathways and agendas (Norte2020/FEDER/FCT). She is convenor of the European Conference on Educational Research (ECER) and editor-in-chief of the Journal Ethnography & Education (Taylor&Francis/Routledge) and of the Journal Educação, Sociedade & Culturas (Afrontamento) She is vice president of the Portuguese Society of Education Sciences and member of the National Council of Education. She is an expert of the European network NESET II (Social Dimension of Education and Training) and of EACEA (Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency).
Narratives of Inclusion and social justice in schools from border regions of Mainland Portugal
Based on a study in schools in the border regions of mainland Portugal, the value of the school is discussed, namely in the promotion of inclusion and social justice. The concept of space is considered to be central to a situated understanding of school experiences and the aspirations of young people. The way in which schools, municipalities and young people envisage or develop responses to spatialized inequalities and injustices is analyzed. On the one hand, we find narratives and practices focused on the redistribution of benefits and resources in order to compensate for inequalities arising from socioeconomic issues, approaches more regulated by cosmopolitan understandings of education, quality or development. On the other hand, we find responses that put at the center less recognized cultural distinctions and that indicate regional configurations of educational policies and point to the pertinence of a situated approach to the concept of social justice in education.