This paper undertakes a critical analysis of recent education and curriculum policies in Portugal, focusing on the relationship between globalization, international agencies, and the curriculum. It aims to highlight not only changes in the organization of schools, but also the setting of a agenda structured at a global level for education in which the ability of supranational and transnational institutional forces to cross or go beyond national borders and the configuration of relationships between nations are all implicit. The paper contends that education and curriculum policies should be understood as a product of multiple influences and interdependencies; they are the result of a process of bricolage which reveals the interests, values, principles, and rules that, at any given moment, are dominant or not. Drawing upon this approach, the aim is to show, on the one hand, how the results of the large OECD research projects influence educational and curriculum policy‐making in Portugal, and, on the other hand, how these policies are affected by the ‘Europeanization’ process.

This paper aims to identify and discuss what constitutes a research-based pedagogical culture in teaching research methods courses in master’s and doctoral programs in education. The discussion draws on empirical results of a set of five focus group interviews with teachers responsible for teaching research methods courses in educational programs in higher education institutions in Portugal. Data are analyzed and interpreted within a situated learning framework that acknowledges the relevance of creating social learning spaces which accommodate the variety of students. The article closes with a characterization of what could be a research-based pedagogical culture in teaching research methods in advanced studies in education in the near future.

The article proposes that the goal of education should be to promote democracy in education, which can be achieved through a viscous curriculum based on narrative learning to enhance communication and inclusivity. The discussion considers different teaching and learning paradigms, including instruction, learning, and communication, to explore the conceptual relationship between curriculum, teaching, and learning. The viscosity of the curriculum ensures resistance to fluidity while allowing for some movement, also considering the dialogical relationship between its critical internal elements — knowledge, pedagogy, and assessment. It is not a prescriptive or liquid framework, but a collaborative and cooperative construction that emphasises the paradigm of communication (Trindade & Cosme, 2010) and the narrative learning approach (Goodson, 2013). These elements enable contextual adaptation and resistance to support a more democratic education. To design a curriculum that goes beyond a prescription, it is essential to recognize that learning involves cultural heritage, guided by school curricula, which must be shared, used, and recreated. Schools and educators must focus on knowledge acquisition and knowledge sharing as part of the common heritage of humanity, which is, therefore, based on the collective creation of new knowledge and new worlds (UNESCO, 2021). Such knowledge is communicated through the affirmation of the personal and social worlds of students. The challenge is to rethink the social mission of the school by collectively committing to culturally significant and humanly empowering learning. This can lead to the co-creation of a more just, humanitarian, and democratic society, especially in times of great uncertainty intensified by war.

In the study of the construction of curricular knowledge in Portugal between 1970 and 2009, we argue that the practice of the established curriculum guidelines has a close relationship with the personal dimension of its actors. Therefore, it is not possible to separate the life history of each actor from the curricular policy measures they developed. This means that we sought not only to identify who the political actors were, but also how they built their knowledge and the relationship this has with their life story, by making their social and cognitive map. The sources that we used were laws, reports and interviews with political actors. We conclude that the choice of political leaders for education is not innocent or even indifferent to their life policies, since the knowledge built by each one is integrated into their educational proposals. Although the agenda for education is defined at the supranational level, national policies take different directions. Thus, the study also suggests the need to research the relation between the collective and the individual in educational policies.