Leadership of portuguese community schools in the East Coast of the United States and the public policies of education: a multiple case studies

The Portuguese community schools of the United States located in the areas of larger Portuguese population concentration are social organizations that come materializing throughout decades the designs of the educative policies of the Portuguese government in relation to the expansion and preservation of the language, the culture and the history of Portugal. These designs of the educative policies are enrolled in the Constitution of the Republic (1976), in the Basic Law of Educative System (1986) and, over all, in the successive legislative norms (Decree-laws and ordinances) of the successive governments. Portuguese community schools in the United States are structuralized in analogous way to schools of the Portuguese geographic space. For this qualitative study (multiple case), four directors of Portuguese schools of the East Coast of the United States were interviewed; two schools are in the state of Rhode Island and the other two are in the state of Massachusetts. Also, it was administered the questionnaire on practices of leadership “Leadership Practices Inventory” (LPI) of Kouzes and Posner (2002) to collect additional data about practices of leadership on the directors of the schools. The LPI evaluates practices of leadership classifying them in five domains: (a) Model the way; (b) Inspire a shared vision; (c) Challenge the process; (d) Enable others to act; and, (e) Encourage the heart. Results of this qualitative research indicate that the Portuguese Government has not had an educative policy stimulant, coherent and consistent of support, incentive, maintenance and diffusion of the Portuguese language and culture and the directors of the studied schools they have a proactive and serving leadership style in conducting the management of Portuguese community schools. The five practices of leadership are highly practiced by the directors of the studied schools above all the practices “Enable others to act” and “Encourage the heart”.

Universidade inclusiva e o aluno com necessidades especiais: a investigação realizada em Portugal

A presente investigação tem como objetivo principal contribuir para a reflexão e sensibilização das NEE no Ensino Superior, através da sistematização da investigação científica realizada em Portugal, nos últimos anos. Pretende-se, assim, contribuir para um maior conhecimento desta realidade no nosso país. Para o efeito, procedeu-se a um levantamento bibliográfico dos documentos disponíveis na área das NEE no ES em três bases de dados: RCAAP (Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto em Portugal); B-On (Biblioteca de Conhecimento Online) e o motor de busca Google. Após a consulta das bases de dados, foram encontrados trinta e cinco documentos, distribuídos em oito Teses (seis Teses de Mestrado e duas Teses de Doutoramento), onze artigos em Revista (dez artigos em Revista Nacional e um artigo em Revista Internacional), quinze Documentos em Conferência e um Capítulo de Livro. Os dados recolhidos permitem perceber que, paulatinamente, a questão das NEE no Ensino Superior tem despertado o interesse dos investigadores, sendo uma área onde a possibilidade e necessidade de mais estudos é uma realidade.