Autonomia e flexibilidade curricular: que impactos na ação organizacional escolar?

Guidelines on the Portuguese education system promote Autonomy and Curricular Flexibility as a way schools can improve the learning mechanisms for their students. The motivation for this investigation was the need to comprehend whether the school grammar instituted in concrete action fulfils its stated promises. The main purpose of this study was to understand how the school organization (re)appropriates the guidelines of the school legislation regarding Autonomy and Curricular Flexibility. The study follows a qualitative interpretation methodology, focusing on the description and comprehension of specific and singular realities – two public schools in the district of Porto, with distinct social and cultural contexts. This exploratory study is based on the analysis of semi-structured interviews with school principals and questionnaires answered by teachers from both schools, focused on understanding the impacts of the guidelines in their schools. The results point to small organizational changes that are even less noticeable in the daily operation of the school and the pedagogical work in the classroom. It is reasonable to conclude that law regulations tend to have no impact.