PROJECT FOR BILINGUAL AND INTERCULTURAL BORDER SCHOOLS: AN EXPERIENCE WITH SCHOOLS IN PORTUGAL AND SPAIN

Abstract

This paper presents the result of a “reading” of the events and practices involved in the first edition of the Project for Bilingual and Intercultural Border Schools, designed to train primary school educators in Portugal and Spain, which took place from 2021 to 2022. In this context, “reading” means the process of making particular meanings of the studied group visible. Among the project's axes of action and goals, we found the promotion of cooperation between Iberian countries, specifically on their borders in educational projects, as well as the production of educational resources in collaborative networks. In the first edition, the project involved 16 Portuguese and Spanish schools, educational institutions from both countries, the coordination of the University of Aveiro in Portugal and the Universidad Complutense de Madrid in Spain, and a partnership with the Organization of Ibero-American States (OEI). To facilitate this analysis, we used a methodology with an ethnographic bias, based on the search for rich points in order to “read” the meanings constructed by the subjects themselves, historically and spatially contextualized. Along the way, we went through Raia's territorial and cultural issues, through the history of cross-border cooperation and the meeting of languages ​​and cultures, as well as a summary of some activities based on the perspective of bilingualism and interculturality. The set of PEBIF events and practices indicates a culture that values ​​interculturality and the linguistic diversity, as the project name suggests. The use of the research-action methodology gives rise to reflections on different practices and events, in a productive dialogue that results in the recognition and appreciation of linguistic and cultural diversity.