O papel dos gestores intermédios na liderança, organização e supervisão de professores numa escola com 3º ciclo e ensino secundário

Abstract

Our research work focuses on the role of the department’s coordinator as a middle structure of schools, mainly in his role as a leader who coordinates and directs a group of teachers. We try to understand what is the role of middle managers in leadership, organization and supervision of teachers in a school with 3rd Cycle and secondary education. We based our research in referenced authors in order to get a consistent theoretical support, which helped us to find the best way in the investigation. That allows to establish a relationship between what is known on the topic and what we intend to investigate. The methodology used is based on qualitative paradigm because we believe that’s the most suitable for the achievement of our aim, once that the goal of the researcher is to build knowledge and not to make judgments. Among the possible methods of gathering information, we chose to use the observation and the interviews. So at the school we based our study we observed department meetings and interviewed all the heads of department and all the coordinators (third cycle, secondary education, projects, evening classes and vocational education). The results show that most department coordinators have identical concepts on promoting and reflection on practice. The vast majority of respondents believes that leadership is essential for achieving the intended goals We note that the role of coordinator while supervising department has not been fully recognized or assumed by most engineers. There are some constraints that could pose a significant obstacle to the implementation of the recommended changes to the role, functions and powers of the Engineer. Curriculum development is not common practice among teachers.

Date of Award	23 Mar 2015
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	José Maria de Almeida (Supervisor)