How did your interest in research in Education Sciences arise, and more specifically in activism, social movements, and youth politics? Which moments or influences do you consider most decisive in shaping your research interests?
During my undergraduate degree, the research methodology courses were a revelation: I realised that asking questions about the world and seeking answers to them could, in fact, be a profession. But I must confess that the real reason I enrolled in the degree in Education Sciences was my father, and he was the one who discovered the degree. When he showed me the course syllabus, I realised it brought together many of my interests, combining Sociology, Anthropology, and Psychology. I had originally wanted to study Anthropology, but I soon understood that Education Sciences were, in fact, what I had been looking for. In my second year, once I came into contact with research methods, I decided I wanted to be a researcher. I remember doing assignments on the rights of young immigrants simply because a Cape Verdean classmate shared her experiences and struggles with me. And that, to me, is what social science research is about: we investigate what we live, what we see being lived, what unsettles us. Issues linked to social inequalities have always troubled me. I grew up in Caramulo and realised, very early on, how money and living location shape the opportunities available. Social inequalities are reproduced in educational and political inequalities, determining who is heard and who is visible. The first funded research project I worked on was about conflict mediation and community mediation in an area near the Aleixo neighbourhood. This project, where I worked for with Professor Tiago Neves, was crucial in helping me understand the community value of research and intervention, particularly in contexts of existential hardship. That’s where my interest lies: in understanding how inequalities unfold and, above all, how people resist them. My connection to activism and social movements also stems from that understanding: the world is political: from decisions about what is taught in schools to the opportunities created or denied, and the everyday acts of resistance that emerge. This is why I find it so fascinating to research with young people. Although they have historically been key players in social change, they are often undervalued. And there is something prophetic about studying youth groups: we produce knowledge not only about who they are today, but also about who they are becoming and what clues they offer us about the society of tomorrow.

In contexts of socio-educational inequality and political polarisation, which research directions do you find most relevant for promoting the active, democratic, and inclusive engagement of young people, especially those who are more vulnerable?
First, we need to understand how different youth groups access and make sense of politics. To achieve that we cannot study only the usual groups in Lisbon and Porto. It is essential to produce knowledge with young people from the interior regions of Portugal, from the peripheries and smaller towns. In these territories, often plaged by vulnerability, we find political creativity but also feelings of exclusion which can fuel populism. It is important to make visible the democratic practices that emerge from these places and to understand patterns of socio-educational inequality and their relation to polarisation. When people feel that nothing can change, politics becomes the domain of the privileged and education loses its purpose. Second, since the school is the most relevant socialising institution, it is urgent to fight for citizenship education that embraces politics in all its plurality plural – discussions, practical experiences, and connection to the real world. We cannot reduce it to entrepreneurship and financial literacy all while neglecting crucial issues such as sexual education, climate education or animal welfare. School environments that promote debate and give voice to young people – even in the organisation of the school itself – are predictors of greater civic engagement and pro-democratic attitudes. Third, information alone is not enough. Confronting people with more scientific data does not necessarily mobilise them. Emotional and behavioural engagement has far greater transformative potential. Inclusive policies must value community knowledge and involve genuine commitment to the changes that communities themselves identify. Young people – especially the most vulnerable, who are often the targets of “political interventions” – are tired of empty promises and merely symbolic inclusion processes. We need to reclaim hope, to give visibility to the alternatives they are already building, to recognise them as producers of political knowledge, and to study unconventional contexts (artistic collectives, grassroots movements, online activism) rather than deepening generational divides through moral panic about, for example, social media.

Visual politics and social media are among your research interests. It's, no doubt, impossible to dissociate social movements and political engagement from the digital sphere and its inevitable influence. In your view, and in light of your research findings, how has the digital world transformed young people’s collective, social, and political consciousness?
The digital has radically transformed how politics is done, how we interpret what happens around us, and how we build our place in the world. More than creating new forms of participation, it has amplified existing dynamics on a scale that would have been unimaginable fifteen years ago. Visuality has always been part of politics, but today it operates with unprecedented reach and pace. Research shows that, in activism, the relationship between online and offline is not one of substitution, but of coexistence. Many protests are designed to be photographed and shared – they are built simultaneously online and offline, as well as through those who comment, share, and reinterpret political images. The protests for Palestine illustrated how young Portuguese people felt part of a global movement, adapting transnational strategies, with social media serving as a window into Gaza when traditional media had limited access. Research with vulnerable groups, for example against evictions, for mental health, or the yellow vests movement, has shown how social networks open up a “right to appear” in the public sphere, creating opportunities for self-representation and facilitating collective mobilisation. But there is also a darker side: fake news, manipulated images, extremist communities. Young people, far from being passive victims, understand how algorithms work and are often critical of them. Although they cannot risk the irrelevance that comes with being online absent, they also develop micro-forms of algorithmic resistance. Out of this tension emerges an articulation between civic imagination and systemic critique. The digital space has become a laboratory of democratic experimentation – for better and for worse.

Your research combines quantitative, ethnographic, and participatory methods. What advantages does using multiple methodological and participatory approaches offer when studying citizenship, youth activism, and political education?
My PhD supervisor, Professor Isabel Menezes, used to say that a doctorate is a “licence to kill”, meaning, it’s important to learn to “kill” in many different ways. What she meant was that, in research, mastering different methods is essential: each tool and approach gives us access to a different angle on reality, and complex phenomena such as youth political participation or citizenship education cannot be understood through a single lens. We need to look at large-scale patterns and trends, but also up close at the contradictions and meanings that numbers alone cannot reveal. I have always used everything, from questionnaire surveys to more qualitative approaches such as ethnography, because I have always sought to see more and better. In a way, surveys reveal the extent, ethnography reveals the depth, participatory methods reveal agency, and visual methods reveal the symbolic dimension of politics. For me, combining methods makes research more engaging but, above all, it makes it more suited to what social reality truly is: complex, dynamic, and multifaceted. In recent years, I have increasingly integrated participatory methods that make the process of knowledge production more collaborative, shared with participants, and that democratise research tools. Visual and digital methods have also become indispensable for analysing online participation practices – how memes, stories or posts function as a form of political action; the life cycle of certain images, how they circulate, change and mobilise emotion. Recently, with colleagues from other countries, we have developed tools that combine ethnography with artificial intelligence and big data analysis to study vast collections of political images with the goal to identify visual patterns of participation and classify images at scale, while also maintaining the cultural sensitivity that comes from ethnographic approaches.

What have been the main challenges and opportunities in translating research and scientific knowledge, in these areas, into tangible social impact?
There is a structural difficulty in building bridges between research and public policy and this applies to any scientific field, not just studies on youth and politics. More participatory research designs can, I believe, generate some local impacts, small, but significant ones. For example, we have projects in schools that include teacher training in participatory pedagogical methods, creating spaces for young people’s participation or channels of dialogue between students and other community actors. The existence of such spaces, even if limited, is very valuable, as is the integration of community engagement practices into teaching. But we always face the same problem: political structures struggle to embrace change proposals that come from schools or young people. We help facilitate these processes, but often the proposals end up shelved because there are no institutional mechanisms to deal with genuine participation. This reflects a broader problem: policymakers often fail to listen to research. The case of citizenship education in Portuguese schools is a perfect example. Decades of research show the importance of schools engaging with civil society actors, fostering plural political debate, providing sexual education, promoting gender equality and using digital technologies pedagogically – all of which are essential to building democratic societies. However, recent education policies are moving in the opposite direction: restrictive, instrumental, fearful of diversity and oriented towards markets and entrepreneurship. The tension between scientific evidence and political decision-making in this area is, hence, clear.

You have extensive experience participating in and co-coordinating national and European projects. Could you share your perspective on the impact of fundamental research on social development and its ongoing transformation?
Fundamental research does not simply describe or measure reality: it creates new categories and concepts that enable us to understand the world in ways that were previously unavailable. Terms such as cultural capital or intersectionality are not mere words – they are conceptual tools that encapsulate complex phenomena in a way that both the scientific community (and increasingly, society) immediately recognises. When I use the term intersectionality, I do not need to explain that I am referring to the overlap of multiple forms of discrimination as the concept itself carries that knowledge. It might seem minor, but it is not. Understanding social reality more deeply is what allows us to act upon it. In a recent project funded by the European Research Council, which supports frontier fundamental research, we sought to theorise visual participation. Yet, in some sense, isn’t fundamental research also applied? By studying how young people make sense of democracy through images, we are mapping democratic transformations as they unfold. It works like a form of collective intelligence, anticipating social changes before they become obvious. For instance, our work on visual participation preceded the boom of digital movements after the pandemic. In social sciences, it is difficult to draw a rigid line between fundamental and applied research; theoretical work stems from concrete problems, and applied research dialogues with broader conceptual frameworks. More than separate categories, fundamental and applied research are complementary dimensions of the same knowledge production process. Kurt Lewin’s phrase, “there is nothing so practical as a good theory”, sums up this inseparability perfectly. Fundamental research enables us to understand the processes, narratives, and structures that shape collective life, creating tools to interpret inequalities, power relations, educational processes, and cultural dynamics. It is this kind of long-term critical knowledge that should guide both practical action and public debate.

You were invited to serve as a referee for the ERC Starting Grants and are an active member of the Portuguese Society of Education Sciences. Which scientific perspectives currently seem most relevant and stimulating to you, both in the Portuguese and European contexts?
I see three major current trends in social sciences. First, the integration of digital and computational methods as we can now analyse vast amounts of data and better understand how people organise and interact in society. Second, citizen science is growing: increasingly, citizens participate in research not only by collecting data but also by defining research questions, bringing science closer to people’s everyday lives. Third, there is a growing focus on the major global challenges such as populism, inequality, and climate change. Europe has been investing in collaborative, transnational projects to study these topics in an interdisciplinary way. In Portugal, universities and research centres are following this trend, promoting international collaboration and new methodological approaches. Ultimately, I believe these changes are making science more connected with society, more collaborative and better able to anticipate problems, helping us prepare for the future.

What advice would you share with young researchers who wish to work at the intersection of education, political sociology and youth participation, particularly considering the need for innovative and inclusive methodologies?
First, constantly question your own analytical categories: what do we consider to be political? What counts as participation? Different youth groups often reinvent these concepts and challenge established academic definitions. Second, never fall into any kind of methodological arrogance or fundamentalism – be open to experimenting with diverse methods and be willing to relinquish the power and control that more conventional approaches tend to offer. Third, build genuine partnerships with social movements, do not study them “from the outside” but create spaces for co-research, where knowledge is generated collectively. Fourth, be prepared to deal with the anxiety that often arises when crossing disciplinary boundaries. Even in an era that values interdisciplinarity, it is common to feel that you never quite “belong” anywhere, as if you are always between fields. Accepting that discomfort as part of the process is essential, because it is precisely that unease that drives creative thinking and new approaches. Finally, write and communicate for diverse audiences – academics, educators, activists, policymakers –because research should amplify voices, not just categorise them.

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