Introduction: The pandemics crisis had consequences in psychological adjustment of persons all over the world. The current study analyzes comparatively the topics of quality of life, and well-being, considering as predictors trait anxiety, feeling of threat, difficulty to relax, empathy and pro-social attitude, health care, sleep quality and optimism, in a population of German and Portuguese adults during the pandemics, in order to obtain a deeper understanding of the psychological reactions to crisis across countries and cultures. Methods: A sample of 470 adults divided in three age groups – —young adults (18—34 years), middle-age adults (34–54 years) and old adults (55 years and older)— completed a self-report questionnaire assessing socio-demographic data, quality of life, well-being, quality of sleep, trait anxiety, Coronavirus threat, optimism regarding the pandemics, difficulty to relax, empathy, and pro-social attitude during the pandemics period. Results: Portuguese participants expresses higher empathy and pro-social attitude and health care but in Germany people have higher quality of sleep. Young adults (a) rated their quality of life lower than middle-age adults and old adults, (b) showed also lower optimism than middle-age and old adults, and (c) showed lower well-being than middle-age,. Conclusions: Young adults rated their quality of life, optimism and well-being during pandemics lower than middle-age and old adults, and experienced higher levels of trait anxiety and difficulty to relax. It seems that young adults show a lower psychological adjustment than other age groups during COVID-19 crisis. It is concluded that quality of life, optimism, and well-being during the pandemics are affected differently according to country and group of age, suggesting individual differences across cultures and ages, and consequently the need of specific interventions to cope with the psychological reactions to pandemics crisis.

Heritage Conservation must be viewed as a cultural and technical activity supported in humanistic and scientific research that aims to extend the life of cultural heritage and, if possible, to clarify the artistic and historical messages therein without losing their authenticity and meaning. Conservation practice transferred knowledge and materials from chemistry and physics for specific applications such as cleaning and consolidation of cultural heritage artefacts but the conservators’ experience and long term assessment of the effects of these applications have shown the necessity of proposing novel products and ways of application/evaluation, less harmful for operators and also for the art-work. Green chemistry, surface sciences and biological sciences are today novel areas of knowledge which show promising results for being applied to Cultural Heritage conservation. Ionic liquids and nano-particles, enzymes and bio-based approaches in particular are main trends in this field with interesting applications, to be further developed and tested.

A crença de que os alunos com altas habilidades cognitivas tenderão a demonstrar resultados escolares positivos nem sempre se comprova pela investigação. Neste estudo tomámos o rendimento escolar dos alunos nas disciplinas de língua portuguesa e matemática e as medidas de desempenho cognitivo (Matrizes Progressivas Standart de Raven e Bateria de Provas de Raciocínio) em dois momentos distintos e avaliámos a estabilidade temporal, no âmbito de um projeto mais amplo cuja finalidade é perceber o efeito das transições escolares no Rendimento Escolar e Desenvolvimento de alunos do Ensino Básico (RED).

During the last two decades, several studies have demonstrated the usefulness of emotional intelligence (EI) to understand job performance, job satisfaction, and well-being and quality of life (Nowack, 2006, 2014). This study analyzes the psychometric properties of the Emotional Intelligence View (EIV) in the Portuguese population. Participants were 708 professionals working in different job sectors (banking, management, and health) from the whole country. The EIV is a self-report scale composed of 74 items assessing emotional intelligence in organizations. It is organized in five dimensions: General EI competence, self-management, adaptability, relationship management, and leadership. The results showed that EIV presents a coherent factor structure. Results pointed to differences between men and women concerning leadership and emotional self-management. Positive correlations were found between age and educational level. It is concluded that EIV is a valid and reliable measure to evaluate EI in professionals working in different job sectors.

Background: Teaching is a profession associated with high levels of stress and burnout, affecting teachers’ performance in the workplace. The main goal of the current study is to investigate stress and burnout conditions of teachers working presently in inclusive schools and the corresponding influence of personal variables. Participants and procedure: Participants were 7086 regular teachers, or non-specialists, and 442 special education teachers, or specialists (N = 7528). Results: Non-specialist teachers showed higher levels of burnout than specialist teachers in inclusive schools. Addition-ally, the results showed that higher levels of burnout are correlated with vulnerability to stress (perfectionism, inhibition, lack of social support, adverse living conditions, dramatization of existence and subjugation), in both groups of teachers. Non-specialists with more professional experience showed a high global score on burnout. In both groups, teachers with a higher level of training (academic degree and specialization) showed lesser vulnerability to stress, especially lower dependence. Concerning the predictors of burnout, vulnerability to stress played an important role as a predictor in both groups, suggesting that more vulnerable teachers are more prone to develop burnout, fatigue and exhaustion. Conclusions: Stress emerges as an important predictor of burnout. Non-specialist teachers are more exposed to burnout and stress in an inclusive workplace, because they have to deal with new demands, requiring new resources, espe-cially new professional skills. On the other hand, teachers with more academic and professional training show higher resilience to stress and more independence, suggesting the crucial value of training to improve an in-clusive school workplace. Training can have an important impact on stress/burnout and consequently on the professional performance and efficacy of teachers in inclusive schools.

Social competence is a multidimensional construct, with emotional, cognitive and contextual dimensions, that plays a central role in the establishment of positive relations by individuals and its well. Applied to the developmental scope, social competencies play a central role, since they allow individuals to establish positive relationships with others, to adopt appropriate behaviours in social situations, among others. In this sense the assessment of social skills should have a central role to understanding developmental process. However, there is a lack of psychological scales concerning the understanding of social skills in children and young adolescents. In this sense, this study aims to present and discuss studies of validity and stability of a scale that evaluates children and young adolescents ‘perceptions about social competence to deal with interpersonal daily life situations and school situations. Participants were 842 children and adolescents’, 477 girls (56.7%) and 365 boys (43.3%), aged 7 to 16 years old (µ=11.50±2.00), attending the 4th (N=278), 6th (N=313), and 9th (N=251) grades, at elementary and secondary schools, in the northern, central and southern Portugal. These participants fulfill the Perceived Social Competence (PSC; [1]), which consists of five social situations, and express the perception of social performance into two subscales related with perceived poor or excellent performance in all of those situations. PSC was administered in two different assessment moments, with an intermission of one year. Results indicate psychometric qualities of PSC, namely, reliability (consistency and stability) and validity, in this sense the usefulness of PSC to acess social competence is proved. In addiction results also indicates gender differences with statistical significant differences in 6th grade, boys increase his perceived social competence and girls decrease, as if developmental and educational transitions from childhood to adolescence create a different way of looking to social competence in boys and girls. Implications are drawn to the development of future educational interventions that promote social competence of boys and girls. Implications are discussed for the development of educational and counseling interventions within scholar and familiar contexts

No presente estudo, desenvolvido no âmbito do projeto ENABLIN+, propomos uma análise das necessidades de apoio complexas e intensas de crianças e jovens, assim como das barreiras que se colocam à sua inclusão de acordo com as percepções dos profissionais que com elas trabalham. Utilizámos o questionário “Needs analysis questionnaire”, aplicando-o a profissionais (N=208) de todo o continente português, por forma a responder a duas questões de investigação: “Que caraterísticas apresentam as crianças com necessidades de apoio intensas e complexas?” e “Quais são as barreiras à sua inclusão?”. É importante conhecer as barreiras mais frequentes e quais as necessidades de apoio mais prementes por forma a desenvolver uma formação mais pertinente. Apesar da Convenção das Nações Unidas de 2006 para os Direitos das pessoas com deficiência garantir que os direitos das crianças com NACI devem ser cumpridos, verificamos que ainda há desafios a ultrapassar. O grau de inclusão varia de país para país na Europa. A Itália e Portugal serão dos mais inclusivos, em termos de medidas legislativas, onde a maioria das crianças está incluída na educação regular, porém os direitos destas crianças não são garantidos de igual forma, embora estejam em marcha diversas iniciativas orientadas para a implementação de modelos de intervenção centrados na qualidade de vida, na inclusão e na participação.

Several predictive variables have been proposed to explain achievement on mathematics, allowing for the anticipation of complexity and the combination of multiple variables. Some studies indicate the multifactorial nature of mathematical performance, combining the cognitive and affective dimensions of the individual and the teaching and learning processes of mathematics. The main objective of this study is to evaluate the impact of cognitive, emotional and attitudinal variables on math performance. The results highlight the need to look at mathematics achievement in the 4th year of school using a multivariate approach.

The present work is focused on the description from relationships between social intelligence and social competences in gifted and non-gifted children and their relationship with abstract intelligence. Based on a study with Portuguese children, 369 are non-gifted children from regular class and 32 were gifted children, we applied: Cognitive Test of Social Intelligence for Children (PRPI-6/11; Candeias et al., 2008), Social Competence Test for Children (PACS-6/11, Candeias et al., 2008) and Coloured Progressive Matrices (CPM, Raven, 1965); we examined the relathionships between Social Intelligence dimensions (Interpersonal Problem Solving, Familiarity, Motivation and Self-confidence), Social Competence and Abstract Intelligence. These findings allow a more specific and significant way to assess and to identify social intelligen ce and its relationships with social competences and abstract intelligence, and are one way to promote a new look at human abilities and social competence, specially for assessment and intervention with gif ted children in educational contexts.