Cultura ético-deontológica dos educadores sociais: desafios de formação

This paper presents a study on the place of ethics in the training of Portuguese social educators, recog-nising that we are dealing with a structuring axis of their professionalism. In a first dimension the study plans of the initial training courses were studied, considering the existence, or not, of curricular units, having found that ethics is present, expressing a common theoretical matrix. In the second dimension, the aim was to find out to what extent the regulatory documents adopted by the scientific, institutional and professional communities reflect this training matrix, and it was found that we are facing open dynamics, showing heterogeneity and diversity. In the third dimension, the perceptions of the professional actors were analyzed in order to understand how the ethical and deontological components identified above are recognized by social educators within their professional practice. We conclude that ethical issues are considered and valued by both the academic training institutions and the reference communities, and are also recognized by the professionals, who highlight the ethical value of their professional knowledge, calling for the reinforcement of ethical training.