School failure and dropout have been one of the major concerns in the European Union for decades, identified as more visible manifestations of the problem of school disaffection, and considered as factors of social exclusion. Portugal was, for several years, one of the countries where school failure and early school leaving were more pronounced; however, it is also one of the EU countries where, in recent years, this negative trend has been reversed. In fact, since the 1980s, several policies and programmes have been developed to promote educational success and reduce dropout rates. Despite the acknowledgment of a trend towards improvement in several of the available indicators, school failure and school dropout continue to be seen as serious problems in Portugal, that need to be reduced.

It is in this context that the EDUPLACES project sets out to contribute to the understanding of the complexity of factors that sustain the reversal of the negative spiral of school failure and dropout, namely by studying cases of inclusive socio-educational practices.

This is a multi-case study of eleven units of observation, in four Portuguese municipalities, developed in three phases/years, by a team of fifteen researchers. Each unit of observation consists of an inclusive socio-educational practice developed in the context of two national programmes aimed at social inclusion and the overcoming of school failure and dropout.

This project gathers researchers from the University of Minho ‒ CIEd (coordination), the University of Porto ‒ CIIE, the University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro ‒ CETRAD, and the University of Algarve ‒ CIEO.

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This research is funded by National Funds through FCT - Foundation for Science and Technology, in the context of project PTDC/MHC-CED/3775/2014. It is funded by CIEd – Research Centre on Education, projects UID/CED/1661/2013 and UID/CED/1661/2016, Institute of Education, University of Minho, through national funds of FCT/MCTES-PT.