Overview of childhood (Portugal)

Abstract

Interdisciplinary studies on children and childhood are still rare in Portugal, and there are scarce studies conducted with children, from the perspective of listening to their voice and assuming their status as a subject. Those studies are framed in what may be called “critical interpretivism,” by combining a conception of child development as a social process embodied in the actions of children and adults, with the critical disassembly of structural processes that influence children and adult interactions, the functioning of social institutions and public policies. This paper analyses the theoretical and empirical research on childhood studies in Portugal.