Conselho Geral

: interesses, políticas e práticas : estudo de caso múltiplo na Região Centro

Abstract

As a strategy oriented organ, the General Council of Schools, introduced by the legislative decree no. 75/2008, issued on April 22nd, has representatives from teaching and nonteaching staff at school, from parents, guardians and students, as well as from of the municipality members and the local community. During the exercise of its executive powers, the resolutions to be taken are not always consensual matter, generating moments of latent conflicts of interest and, therefore, constraints occur. They are disruptive, they influence decisions. Our study intends to verify how real those interests are, where they come from and the way they condition the performance of the General Council. We start out comprising some possibilities taken from our experience in education, which we tried to ascertain. For this purpose, we have asked some questions as a starting point. We have also focused our attention on the schools autonomy instruments, which also fall within the competences of the General Council. We have used a qualitative research methodology in a multiple case study constituted by four group studies in clustered and non-clustered schools, with diverse characteristics and contexts, thus enabling comparisons and conclusions and ongoing data cross-checking. We have chosen the interview to collect data for our research, and applied it to a sample of representatives of all the sectors of the General Council. We’ve projected an analysis of content, first, case by case, and then by cross-checked conclusions as is: the council members value the autonomy instruments; as for the strategic vision, they undertake the intervention project of the Executive Director; there are individual interests that arise with particular pressure during election times. This subject seems to be current and pertinent since municipal supervision is a near future commitment.

Date of Award	26 May 2015
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Paulo Pereira (Supervisor)