Fifty years of Literature Teaching in Portugal - A study based on Teachers' Life Histories

Submitted by: Andressa J. Godoy
Abstract: The Carnation Revolution marked the beginning of the Democratic Era in Portugal, which celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2024. Among the changes resulting from the historic event is the redefinition of the social role attributed to the Language and Literature teaching (Duarte, 2013; Magalhães, 2019). Based on this context, we have been developing a research project aiming to produce professional life histories of teachers who teach or have taught Literature, which will contribute to the characterisation of the paradigms that have guided the teaching of Literature in Portugal during this period. The study consists of three phases, designed according to the life history methodology (Goodson & Sikes, 2017).
The first one involves an analysis of the institutional and academic discourses regarding Literature teaching that may have impacted teachers' professional practices. To achieve this, we conducted a systematic review and have been analysing official documents that guided Literature teaching in Portugal over the last five decades.
As part of the second phase, we plan to conduct semi-directive interviews with Literature teachers who began their careers around the time of the Revolution. We will identify participants through snowball sampling and invite them to share their professional life stories. Afterwards, we will analyse their narratives to write the life stories of each teacher participating in the study.
In the last phase, we will triangulate the results and analyses obtained by the two previous steps to write the prototypical professional life histories of Literature teachers and to characterise the paradigmatical evolution of Literature teaching in Portugal since the decade of 1970.
By doing that, we hope to collaborate with the discussion about the progress and democratisation of Literature Education by amplifying the voices of its contributors.

Keywords: Literature Teaching; Literature Teachers; Life History.

Bibliography:
Duarte, R. S. (2013). Ensino da Literatura: Nós e Laços [Doctoral Thesis] Universidade do Minho.
Goodson, I. & Sikes, P. (2017). Techniques for doing life history. In Ivor Goodson (Ed), The Routledge International Handbook on Narrative and Life History (pp. 72 -88). Routledge.
Magalhães, J. (2019). Literatura e Ensino em Portugal. Impossibilia - Revista Internacional de Estudios Literarios (17), 5-27.