Towards a transformative vision of pedagogical supervision

Abstract

The main purpose of this paper is to propose a transformative vision of pedagogical supervision within a democratic value framework based on the assumption that the goals and the nature of supervisory and pedagogical practices should be articulated and that both should be empowering. A proposal for conceptualizing the relation between supervision and pedagogy is presented, which assumes that they cannot be dissociated and should be oriented towards empowerment through a set of guiding principles. Conditions that favor and hamper this direction are then discussed on the basis of a supervision project that has been developed at the University of Minho since 1995. This project illustrates the potential value, constraints and paradoxes of supervision as a practice that stands between the reproduction and the transformation of the social order that is implicit in the contexts of intervention.