(SLivre) Narrating the curriculum: Life histories of primary school teachers across five decades of educational change

Main Article Content

Ana Maria Carolino
Amélia Lopes
Leanete Thomas Dotta
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7676-2680

Abstract

Political and educational transformations in Portugal after the 1974 democratic revolution reshaped the 1st-cycle basic education curriculum and teachers’ professionalism. Drawing on a historical-curricular lens, this article examines how ten women primary teachers who entered the profession between 1970 and 1986 narrate the lived curriculum across five decades, focusing on the interplay between formal and informal curriculum. Life-history interviews were conducted online, transcribed verbatim, and analysed using paradigmatic narrative analysis with a deductive orientation, organised around the themes “formal curriculum” and “informal curriculum”. Findings show a shift from a centralised and selective curriculum to a dense framework increasingly regulated by assessment devices, school clustering and externally imposed projects, narrowing perceived autonomy. At the same time, teachers describe the persistence of an informal curriculum built through projects, reinterpretation of prescriptions and the centrality of pedagogical relationships. We argue that the democratic curriculum is constructed within a tense inter-curriculum, in which curricular changes are mediated by teachers and curricular agency is continuously negotiated under conditions of “relative” autonomy.

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ARTICLES | Open call

Author Biographies

Ana Maria Carolino, CIIE/FPCEUP

Ana Maria Carolino is a PhD candidate in Educational Sciences at the Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences of the University of Porto. She holds a Master’s degree in Educational Sciences from the University of Porto and is a primary education teacher. She is a member of the Centre for Research and Intervention in Education (CIIE) and of the research community of practice IDEAFor – Identity, Democracy, School, Administration and Training (IDEAFor/CIIE-FPCEUP).

Amélia Lopes, CIIE/FPCEUP

Amélia Lopes has been a Full Professor at the Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences of the University of Porto (FPCEUP) since 2011 and, in 2024, was elected President of the Portuguese Society of Educational Sciences (term 2024–2027). She has held several academic management positions at FPCEUP, notably as President of the Scientific Council (2018–2023) and of the Pedagogical Council (2010–2014), and as a member of the Executive Council. She is Vice-Director of the Centre for Research and Intervention in Education (CIIE), coordinates the Observatory of School Life (OBVIE) and the community of practice IDEAFOR, and served as local coordinator of the European Education Policy Network for Teachers and School Leaders (2019–2023). Her research focuses on teaching, teachers’ careers and professional development, teacher education and professionalism, inclusion, academic identities, the research–teaching nexus, doctoral education, and the impacts of digitalisation on education. She leads the FYT-ID project (PTDC/CEDG-EDG/1039/2021) and has been involved in several national and international projects, including Erasmus+ initiatives. She has served on advisory boards and evaluation panels (A3ES and external school evaluation), particularly in teacher education. She is a member of editorial boards and a reviewer for international journals, a co-founder of scientific networks, and was awarded the UP PRIZE – Innovative Pedagogical Practice in 2023.

Leanete Thomas Dotta, CIIE/FPCEUP

Leanete Thomas Dotta is an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences of the University of Porto (FPCEUP), a full member of the Centre for Research and Intervention in Education (CIIE/FPCEUP), an external expert at the General Inspectorate of Education and Science in school external evaluation processes, and a collaborating researcher at CeiED. Her research focuses on teacher professional development, with an emphasis on initial teacher education, professional identities, and professionalism. She completed her PhD in Education at the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo (2010) and obtained recognition and equivalence of her PhD in Educational Sciences at FPCEUP (2015). She is Co-PI of the FYT-ID project (PTDC/CED-EDG/1039/2021) and coordinated the project Cooperation for Quality Development in the municipality of Kuito-Bié (2021–2022), co-funded by the Camões Institute. She is a member of the COST Action GRADE (CA21141) and the Life Stories in Education network (since 2018), and contributed to the creation of the Angola/Portugal Teachers and Education Network (RAPPE) in 2020; she also participated in the CitEdEV network (2020–2023). She has supervised master’s dissertations and doctoral theses and delivered training on NVivo. She taught at FPCEUP until 2022, at Lusófona University (2022–2024), and since 2025 has returned to teaching at FPCEUP. She began her career in primary and secondary education and remains connected to these levels through research and scholarly publications.

How to Cite

Carolino, A. M., Lopes, A., & Thomas Dotta, L. (2026). (SLivre) Narrating the curriculum: Life histories of primary school teachers across five decades of educational change. Educação, Sociedade & Culturas, 74. https://doi.org/10.24840/esc.vi74.2077

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