Education as a key factor to end poverty among youth in Portugal : analysis of the perceived resources portuguese schools have

• Autor(a) principal: Salvador, Samuel Rosa
• Data de Publicação: 2021
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.14/37000
• topic: Poverty; Youth poverty; Education; School; Portuguese context; Pobreza; Pobreza jovem; Educação; Escola; Contexto português; Domínio/Área Científica::Ciências Sociais::Psicologia

The purpose of this dissertation was to evaluate the perceived conditions Portuguese schools have on the combat of poverty and to furtherly provide insightful suggestions. The dissertation starts by offering a new, comprehensive conceptualization of poverty, with a focus on the psychological, physiological and social aspects of what it means to be poor. A set of two studies were conducted. One is dedicated to teaching staff, non-teaching staff and other school employees from schools inserted in the “Programa Territórios Educativos de Intervenção Prioritária” (TEIP Programme), and the other is destined to parents with school-age children/teenagers from the same schools as the first study. Two questionnaires were created, one for each study. Both questionnaires included quantitative and qualitative data. Results suggest that Portuguese schools, to some degree, are conscious of the already existent resources created to combat poverty and do offer some of them, even if their quality is not perceived as being on the desired level. There is a sense that schools try and make efforts. Those efforts are, however, viewed as insufficient, which does not mean respondents perceive the schools as being the responsible parties. Other reasons, such as lack of funding, might play a role. Furthermore, the respondents had multiple suggestions that were put into nine different sections. These suggestions serve as guidelines for schools to take into account and consider according to their specific needs. Some limitations to the study were identified. However, it is believed that this study was able to give new insights to the literature namely by a) providing a new conceptualization of poverty for the youth, b) evaluating how the Portuguese schools are prepared to eradicate poverty, and c) providing concrete suggestions for schools to consider when trying to end poverty and to make schools a better place for the good development of their students.