Educação social em Portugal: exigências de formação

Social Pedagogy is defined as an educational knowledge that frames lifelong learning processes developed in a perspective of social solidarity, constituting the professional knowledge of social educators. Based on these assumptions, we wanted to know to what extent it is valued within the initial training provided by Higher Education Institutions with offers in Social Education. Thus, we elected three study objectives aimed at identifying and characterizing the place of Social Pedagogy in the study plans of existing undergraduate degrees in Portugal, as well as in the training of the respective teachers, trying, finally, to enquire the perception of the professional actors. To this end, we opted for a methodological approach of a qualitative nature, using document consultation and the direct questioning of actors. The analysis of the data collected allowed us to conclude that Social Pedagogy is valued by the institutional actors, with regard to the curricular offer and the profile of the teachers.