Abstract
Political discourses advocating for school and teachers’ autonomy have been rising concerned with fulfilling the principle of democratic education, based on equal opportunities so everyone can be successful. Regarding teachers, the autonomy is linked with the concept of agency and envisages teachers’ active role in the development of curricular processes. Bearing this in mind, this paper analyses the possibilities and difficulties faced by teachers who try to run across curricular and pedagogical “corridors of freedom”, on a daily basis. To this regard, a research was conducted by collecting and analysing the opinions of teachers from schools in a high position in the Portuguese national ranking. Opinions focused on teachers’ daily curricular practices, particularly their motivation to use them or the aspects that constrain their development. Conclusion was that teachers’ autonomy, although present in political guidelines, is in conflict with external demands and impositions that leave little room for devising curricular practices that would adapt the national curriculum to real-life school contexts. Likewise, one concludes that despite of the existing circumstances and constraints, teachers participating in this study are in search for windows of space and time to go through those rather narrow corridors of freedom.
Educational policies; Curricular practices; Teachers’ agency