The 2026-2027 academic year began at Universidade Lusófona with two moments of reflection on the role of education in building and defending democracy.

Faculty of Social Sciences, Education and Administration: Tribute to Frei Betto

The opening of the academic year of the Faculty of Social Sciences, Education and Administration (FCSEA) took place on 21 October in the Agostinho da Silva Auditorium and was dedicated to Frei Betto, who was present. The session included the screening of a documentary about the Dominican friar and popular education, followed by a talk by António Teodoro, Director of the Institute of Education and of CeiED, entitled “Popular Education and Democracy in Brazil and Portugal – Yesterday and Today”.

Starting from a personal memory of the first World Education Forum, held in Porto Alegre in 2003, the speaker recalled the moment when Frei Betto took up his post in the Fome Zero (Zero Hunger) Programme at the start of Lula’s first government. It was from this episode that he questioned the role of popular education in building and defending democracy, in Brazil and in Portugal.

Returning to the work of Paulo Freire, he defended popular education as a practice of emancipation that recognises all people as subjects of knowledge and transformation. He recalled that, both in Portugal after 25 April and in Brazil, education was conceived as part of a democratic project that is not exhausted by elections. He also stressed that more schooling does not automatically mean greater democratic awareness, and that knowledge, on its own, does not immunise against authoritarianism. Therefore, he added, it is not enough to call for more education: we must ask what kind of education, for what purpose, and with what relationship to knowledge, justice and democracy.

In his conclusion, he defended education as a common good and as a commitment to democracy, capable of transforming “knowledge into understanding, understanding into awareness, and awareness into responsibility” for a common world.

Institute of Education: Lecture and Debate with Cristiano Gianolla

On the following day, 22 October, the Institute of Education marked the start of the academic year with a lecture and debate with Cristiano Gianolla, a researcher at the Centre for Social Studies (CES) of the University of Coimbra, where he is deputy coordinator of the research line “Democracy, Justice and Human Rights”.

The welcome session included addresses by António Teodoro, Director of the Institute of Education; and António Costa Pinto, Director of FCSEA.

Cristiano Gianolla holds a PhD in Sociology and Political Science from the University of Coimbra and the University of Rome – Sapienza. His research focuses on democracy, postcolonialism, populism, intercultural dialogue, citizenship and migration. He coordinates European projects under Horizon Europe and is the author and co-editor of six books, including the monograph Decentring Liberal-Democracy through Duty and Intercultural Democratisation (Palgrave Macmillan, forthcoming, open access).

The lecture, entitled “‘Duty’ as a Link of Resistance and Democratic Reinvention in the Face of the Pedagogy of Autocratic Hierarchy”, reflected on the role of duty in democratic resistance and reinvention in the face of autocratic hierarchies. The session ended with a social gathering with refreshments.