How do the leaderships of the Portuguese public school appropriate ICTs?

Abstract

After the long period of abstinence from information and communication technologies by Portuguese teachers, and a multitude of academic debates on the interest of their use at, and for the school, it finally seems possible to target attention exclusively on the way they are, or could be, used in schools. This article derives from a multiple case study in the non-higher education, with mixed, mainly qualitative and descriptive, methodology, aiming at studying what is the type of appropriation of ITCs by Portuguese public-school leaderships. Two conclusions stand out from the study: resistance to the use of ICTs is still a reality in Portuguese public-school system; and there is no pattern of appropriation and exploration of the potential of ICTs and the digital resources that is common to schools’ leaderships.