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Research and Learning Communities (ReLeCo)

NEA-ES: African Studies – Education and Society

Presentation

This ReLeCo aims to promote a space for academic and scientific dialogue that will contribute to the emergence of new perspectives, logics and analytical approaches focused on African socio-contemporaneity, and on how the social, cultural, political and economic reality influences educational policies, educational ideals, pedagogical processes and practices on this continent.

The identification of new theoretical, methodological and empirical frameworks based on the socio-historical framework of the Lusophone, Anglophone and Francophone states of Sub-Saharan Africa (Sub-Saharan Africa / Afrique sub-saharienne), and their relationship with education, taking into account public policies and national development programs, plans and projects, will constitute the main fields of social analysis and study of this Nucleus, with the aim of promoting new instruments for reading the complex social reality that characterizes contemporary Sub-Saharan Africa.

The identification of research proposals that benefit from complementary approaches from South and North, allowing the emergence of discourses of “epistemological rational creativity”, for the promotion of Social Sciences in contemporary Sub-Saharan African societies, as a complement to discourses based on the “logic of continuity”, which revisit concepts such as “eurocentrism” and “westernism” as the basis for the production of scientific knowledge, will seek to give way to contemporary discourses of a continent that continuously reinvents itself, including in the field of scientific production, especially the specificities of its socio-historical and logical-temporal framework and the influence of global agendas.

Thus, through this collaborative network, we intend to promote:

The scientific production of knowledge about the African continent, through the definition of concepts, the systematization of theories and scientific and academic discussions, examples of which include subaltern studies, Afrocentrism, post-westernism and studies on decolonial thought, in order to identify theoretical, analytical and interpretative frameworks that are more appropriate for a better understanding of the socio-educational reality of Sub-Saharan African countries, from the perspective of the sociology of education and comparative education;

Institutional, regional, national, transnational and international collaboration that contributes to increasing interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary and multidisciplinary knowledge of the socio-contemporary realities of sub-Saharan Africa, focusing on the relationship between education and society;

The comparative, interdisciplinary, historical, sociological approach, and taking into account political science and economics, for a better understanding of contemporary African societies and the challenges they currently face, such as demographic pressure, brain drain, competitiveness, social cleavages and the way education and knowledge interact with these valences;

Networking, based on the identification of researchers and scholars from the South and the North, from different contexts, countries and continents, who are dedicated to studies on societies and education in Sub-Saharan Africa, creating spaces for dialogue and sharing different perspectives on the various Africas.

ReLeCo’s thematic areas, with a focus on Sub-Saharan Africa, are:

  • Education policies and global agendas
  • Evaluation and quality of educational systems and higher education
  • Informal contexts of education
  • Curricula and learning
  • Diversity, equity, and inclusion
  • Youth and adult education
  • Child studies
  • Teacher Education
  • Languages, cultures and knowledge

The Nucleus is composed of researchers from CeiED, Portugal, Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde and Mozambique, and guest researchers from foreign institutions, as well as doctoral and master students, with interest in “African studies” and the relationship between “education and society”:

Coordenation

  • Arlinda Cabral

CeiED Researchers

  • Alcina Manuela de Oliveira Martins
  • António Teodoro
  • Arlinda Cabral
  • Isabel Sanches
  • Joana Quinta
  • José V. Brás
  • Lucimar Dantas
  • Maria Neves Gonçalves
  • Marta Vieira
  • Teresa Almeida Patatas
  • Vítor Rosa

Invited Researchers

  • António Correia e Silva (Universidade de Cabo Verde)
  • Arlindo Vieira (Universidade de Cabo Verde)
  • Bendita Donaciano (Universidade Pedagógica de Moçambique)
  • Edalina Sanches (Instituto de Ciências Sociais, Universidade de Lisboa)
  • João Resende-Santos (Bentley University, USA)
  • Nilza Costa (CIDTFF, Universidade de Aveiro)
  • Victor Kajibanga (Universidade Agostinho Neto, Angola)

Training Researchers

  • Maria Teresa de Almeida e Costa (PhD student in Education, ULHT)
  • Alice Sakuema Muvuma (Masters student in Educational Sciences, ULHT)
  • Maria Emília Tacanho Rosário (Masters student in Educational Sciences, ULHT)