Editorial

Abstract

This issue of the Sensos-e journal is dedicated to the papers presented at the “Porto International Conference on Research in Education” – Porto ICRE’17 – that took place in the Porto Polytechnic between the 19^th and the 21^st of July 2017. The conference gathered nearly 300 participants from several parts of the world to discuss and debate research in education.

Porto ICRE was organized by the Centre for Research and Innovation in Education (inED) of the School of Education, a structure that congregates researchers from different interrelated knowledge domains contributing for the systematic study of education. inED considers education as a central process in human lives both for individuals and for societies. As a crucial and wide process, that occurs since the first years and through the life cycle, in a diversity of situations and contexts, Education is the object of attention of researchers, professionals, policy deciders and general society. Being a complex, culturally embedded process, education must be understood as a multifaceted process whose study encompasses multiple scientific areas and perspectives. Consequently, Porto ICRE’17 aggregated researchers, practitioners, stakeholders, and students, from diverse academic fields, that shared and discussed educational issues in four main themes: (a) Society challenges and social education, (b) Research on educational contexts and processes, (c) Lifelong learning, teaching education and professional development, and (d) Culture, heritage, and education.

The ten papers published in this number, presented by researchers from Portugal and Brazil, were submitted to a double-blind review process by an international panel of academic experts. They are a clear demonstration of the multiple approaches to the field of Education assumed by the organization of the Porto ICRE’17, covering the four main themes, from diverse theoretical standpoints, and following heterogeneous methodological approaches.

We believe this issue will be of interest for researchers, students, and practitioners, and we hope that it increases the interest in the specific topics depicted in these papers, thus contributing to the emergence new dialogues in Education.