5 Early Childhood and Special Education Degree Programs in Portugal

Goals:to qualify professionals/teachers intervening in early childhood education and 1st cycle of basic school, promoting critical analysis, research, intervention and life long learning competences.

PROFESSIONAL OUTPUTS Nurseries; Kindergarten; Informal Educational Contexts of Child and Community Animation: Animation of Libraries, Playrooms, Leisure Activities, Hospitals, Companies that organize Playful and/or Didactic Activities; Administration of Crèches and Kindergartens. This second cycle of studies aims to provide the acquisition of professional skills indicated as fundamental in the specific professional performance profile of the Child Educator, in order to enable him/her to design and develop the curriculum through the planning, organization, and assessment of the environment educational, as well as activities and curricular projects, with a view to building meaningful learning; mobilization of knowledge and skills necessary for the development of an integrated curriculum.

Develop in a well-structured conceptual framework for the specific context of performance; Deepen the skills of analysis and critical reflection to improve socio-educational practice; Contribute to the construction of scientific knowledge in the specific area of ​​training; Develop leadership skills and conflict resolution; Adopt intervention strategies in order to combat the problems generated by social imbalances; Develop capacities to design, manage and evaluate institutions and programs

promote an integrative reading of the economic, political, social, and cultural factors that weigh on the educational practices of the various agents of socialization, in childhood and youth, which potentiates the construction of a future of social inclusion; provide knowledge that allows us to devise innovative ways to counter the failure of the mechanisms of social integration by the family, the community of residence, and the school institution itself and to overcome the social and psychically destructive effects of the "differential association" in childhood and youth; to promote studies that make it possible to evaluate the cost/benefit ratio of the different types of services, namely those that refer to institutionalization and those that favor community network work; promote research that contributes to the design of intervention methods aimed at the construction of school, personal and social qualification paths, enhancing successful transitions to adulthood; promote the learning of methods of concerted action among different types of professionals and organizations, directly or indirectly involved in the education of young generations; stimulate the development of human resources and the emergence of research projects to be pursued within the framework of doctoral programs.