The Two Faces of the Same Coin. National and Individual Refraction on Curriculum Policies in Portugal.

In liquid times when the social institutions have difficulties in adapting themselves to changes at the same time they happen (Bauman, 2007), one of the visible effects of the various processes of globalization has been the conduct of society in a more individualized way, which has a dual effect on education: the need to listen their actors and understand through this listening, how to build educational processes; and the need to identify the social consequences that this individualization has on school knowledge and how does school react to these changes.

In this paper we want to identify the processes of refraction of transnational curriculum policies both at national and school level, discussing the role of OECD framework, in particular in the project Education 2030 on curriculum policy in Portugal and understanding how this conceptual construction has conditioned official curriculum knowledge. We want to see the relationship between this think thank discourse and the design of Portuguese curriculum.

On the other hand, it seems that the confrontation of two rationalities could also enlighten the process of curriculum change in Portugal. We have at the same time OECD working on skills and competencies to shape the future, developing a conceptual learning framework relevant for 2030 and teachers’ work and organization mainly based on contents, products and results. Our goal is to identify teachers’ refraction of this transnational organization’s work on official educational knowledge and its consequences on teachers’ work and identity.

This is part of an on going project of follow up changes in two schools in a process of change within curriculum flexibility and autonomy framework launched this year by the Portuguese Ministry of Education. We consider documental analysis – OECD Education 2030 project, national curriculum policies, school documents - and teachers’ statements using the concept of teachers’ professional life histories.