Results Construction of an inclusiv

Results
Construction of an inclusive, emancipatory curriculum
by the educational community
The elaboration of this alternative curriculum occurred in 1999/2000. Students
with repeated school underachievement in SEUC were invited to apply for the
course. Candidates chose the vocational areas they were interested in. The selection
of two vocational areas resulted from these choices. Thus, the students participated
in the construction of this curriculum from the start, as several authors recom-
mend (Knowles, 1986; Secretaria de Estado da Educação e Inovação, 1996; Zittoun,
2004). The teachers were invited by the school board. This was an important step to
promote innovation based on teachers (Sebarroja, 2001).
The course included: (1) a general component—Portuguese, English, and
Mathematics; (2) a socio-cultural component—Environmental Education, Citi-
zenship Education, Social Sciences, Physical and Chemical World, and Hygiene,
Health, and Safety at Work; and (3) a vocational component—Chemistry and
Physics Lab Techniques, Biology Lab Techniques, Organization and Classification of Techniques for Library Documents (TOCDB), and Introduction to Computer
Technologies and their Application in the Lab and in the Library (ITIALB). The
course was called laboratory assistant / technical librarian.
It was one of a kind on
a national level. It took place between 2000/2001 and 2002/2003 and provided the
conclusion of the 3
rd
cycle of basic education (7
th
to 9
th
grades).
The innovation in the pedagogical practices was mentioned in students’ ac-
counts, as illustrated below:
Ah! Alternative curricula because they’re always more practical. At least for someone
who stopped studying a long time ago and is starting, I always thought it was more
practical. (...) What advantage do I see? The advantage is, well, the teachers have more
time. There’s more attention, isn’t it!? Like this... well, they’ve got more time for us. (I3,
Tânia)
This student felt that those practices facilitated learning. She referred to the
existence of practical activities, such as those carried out in collaborative project
work, developed in Environmental Education (Courela, 2007).
The teachers valued that they could act as curriculum constructors, as shown
in one of their accounts: “It was the first opportunity to work with a syllabus that
didn’t come from the Ministry of Education” (I1, Mathematics teacher, 1
st
and 2
nd
years). The collaborative work that took place among the teachers, which was fa-
cilitated by a weekly meeting, was still quite unusual in schools (Lima, 2002; Teles,
2011). This work turned out to be essential for the construction of this curriculum,
contributing to the development of complex professional competences (Perrenoud,
2000).
Ernesto’s life trajectory of participation
Ernesto was from São Tomé. He lived in Angola, with his mother, until the age of
17. In 1999 he came to Portugal to live with his father. In 1999/2000 he started at-
tending SEUC. One of his teachers stated: “I remember he was always on his own
and he was someone... He looked like an animal! He didn’t talk... I remember
walking into a classroom one day and the place was dark and Ernesto was sitting
there all by himself!” (I1, ITIALB teacher, 3
rd
year). Ernesto was completely isolated
from a social and educational point of view. Neither the school was inclusive, nor
was he capable of trying this inclusion, revealing lack of confidence in the interest
he might arouse in his peers. This lack of confidence has been stressed by other au-
thors who have studied and developed alternative curricula (César, 2002; Oliveira,
2006). Thus, Ernesto had not internalized any intra-empowerment mechanisms he
could use in the school context.
During the course, Ernesto’s progress was noticed by the teachers, his school-
mates, and himself. One teacher highlighted: “to look at this kid now and remember
the one I saw in that dark classroom, it seems like two different people! Ernesto is
just so different, he’s so much more communicative” (I1, ITIALB teacher, 3
rd
year).
Another teacher added: “We got him to integrate the class quite well and even feel
motivated to the point of saying he’d like to continue to study!” (I2, TOCDB teacher,
1
st
and 2
nd
years). Thus, he began internalizing and using some intra-empowerment
mechanisms. This had impacts on his life trajectory of participation.
f we seek to understand the impacts of the inter-empowerment
mechanisms
on Ernesto ways of acting, we find them in his discourse, in the observations and
interviews we carried out, during which he stressed the importance of the interper
-
sonal relationships he established with his classmates and teachers. He highlighted
the importance of collaborative project work, which he called gro