Literature has emphasized the value of multidisciplinary learning strategies and the necessity of educating students to solve complex problems. It also pointed out the importance of teacher's beliefs in their practices. The purpose of this study is to understand how future teachers recognize the board game Caravelas as a didactic tool to help elementary school students develop math skills in History and Geography Portugal (HGP) classes, in a multidisciplinary way. A board game intervention was employed in the study, and both quantitative and qualitative data were gathered from sixteen future teachers enrolled in the Didactic of HGP course during their third year of the Basic Education programme. Two questionnaires were used along with a focus group discussion. The findings indicate that this group of future teachers thinks Caravelas can help students achieve their learning goals in mathematics and HGP, as well as develop their reasoning, problem- solving, and social skills. Future teachers believe Caravelas can be used as a didactic tool to integrate mathematics into HGP subjects and support multidisciplinary learning.

O artigo começa por fazer uma referência às obras de Basil Bernstein que constituem os marcos fundamentais da evolução do seu pensamento. Segue-se uma descrição pormenorizada dos modelos que contêm os principais conceitos da sua teoria – Modelo de Reprodução e Transformação Cultural e Modelo do Discurso Pedagógico – em que se explicita o significado teórico desses modelos e conceitos e se apresentam exemplos que concretizam a sua expressão ao nível de textos e contextos pedagógicos. O artigo inclui também os desenvolvimentos mais recentes do pensamento de Bernstein, explicitando as suas ideias sobre as formas que os discursos, sujeitos à transformação pedagógica, podem assumir - Discursos Verticais e Discursos Horizontais. Finalmente, aborda-se a teoria de Bernstein no quadro da investigação empírica, salientando-se o seu posicionamento epistemológico e explicitando o modelo de metodologia que ele preconizava como “motor” do desenvolvimento de qualquer teoria.

• Purpose The purpose of this paper is to provide empirical evidence regarding the classification of European countries based on accounting quality metrics. The authors investigate whether the grouping of countries based on accounting quality levels differs from other classifications based on accounting practices or country-specific factors identified in previous studies. • Design/methodology/approach The authors run panel data regressions for 2.078 European listed companies using value relevance and earnings smoothing metrics. The authors also apply cluster analysis to classify the countries. • Findings The results suggest that the adoption of a common set of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) did not lead to a similar level of accounting quality of financial information. The authors identified three clusters of countries that are not coincident with previous classifications. • Research limitations/implications The results show that the adoption of different accounting practices allowed in IFRS does not necessarily influence accounting quality. • Practical implications The results suggest that the way regulators decided to incorporate IFRS into national accounting systems is one issue that may be relevant in explaining the three clusters. • Originality/value The paper provides empirical evidence that supports two theoretical assertions. The first is that a classification depends entirely on the characteristics used to represent the countries being classified. The second is that the adoption of a single set of accounting standards does not determine similar accounting practices and does not lead to similar levels of accounting quality.

Abstract: This paper examines whether the level of enforcement shapes the complexity in accounting standards. First, in order to identify the level of complexity in accounting standards, we calculated a new measure that conceptualizes accounting complexity based on the theoretical dimensions of multiplicity and diversity. To calculate this new measure, the content of each International Financial Reporting Standard and International Accounting Standard, in 2018, was analyzed. Second, we investigated whether the level of enforcement affects this score, using the number of enforcements published by the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA). Our results show that accounting standards with a higher number of enforcements by ESMA are also more complex, suggesting that enforcement is an important factor that explains the level of complexity of an accounting standard. This study is particularly relevant for regulators in the accounting, auditing, and enforcement fields, since it provides evidence of how enforcement contributes to increasing the level of complexity of accounting standards. This study contributes to the debate on the interdependence of enforcement and accounting regulation, showing that enforcement mechanisms can influence accounting standards. This study also calculates a new measure of complexity in accounting standards, rather than using a quantitative proxy.

O artigo apresenta uma síntese de parte da investigação que se tem vindo a desenvolver e que procura chegar a uma compreensão mais profunda das relações entre as características específicas dos contextos pedagógicos da escola, família e formação de professores e a aquisição pelos alunos de regras de reconhecimento e de realização necessárias à produção do texto que é requerido nos contextos específicos instrucional e regulador da aprendizagem na escola. Intervir ao nível da escola e da formação de professores são também objectivos específicos da investigação. Neste artigo, dá-se particular importância à metodologia de investigação que guiou a análise e intervenção em contextos distintos de aprendizagem científica e social. Pretende-se mostrar como se desenvolveu, com base na inter-relação do teórico e do empírico, uma linguagem externa de descrição que adequa os indicadores de análise textual às características específicas dos contextos em estudo. As conclusões apresentam uma síntese dos principais resultados sugeridos pelos diversos estudos e referem como as potencialidades de diagnóstico, previsão, descrição, explicação e transferência da teoria de Bernstein que, fundamentalmente, orientou a investigação, foram exploradas nos estudos que se desenvolveram.

The study continues research developed by the ESSA Group (Sociological Studies of the Classroom) within the field of teacher education. Bernstein’s theory of pedagogic discourse has provided the main conceptual framework and the concept of specific coding orientation has been used to evaluate the professional development of teachers involved in in-service teacher education programmes. The objective of this paper is to present what has been done to appreciate teachers’ professional development in terms of recognition and realisation rules (specific coding orientation) to contexts of pedagogic intervention, discussing the meaning of that relation and the potentialities and limitations of the methodological instruments which have been constructed to evaluate teachers’ performance. A detailed and grounded description of the instruments is given, referring the theoretical and methodological assumptions that have guided their conception and application and giving examples to show how the analysis of the data was done. It is also discussed the extent to which the results of the application of these instruments can give suggestions for a progressive improvement of the external language of description developed in the context of teacher education.

The objective of this study is to investigate if the value relevance of European-listed companies increased after the mandatory application of International Accounting Standards (IAS)/International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and how the value relevance of accounting information prepared under IAS/IFRS is shaped by the specific factors of the country in which companies are domiciled. Results show that the value relevance of financial information during the period companies applied mandatory IAS/IFRS is higher than for the period during which they applied local accounting standards. We also found that countries where accounting and tax are clearly separated show more relevant accounting information. Finally, we found that companies from countries with more legal and public enforcement mechanisms disclose less relevant accounting information under IAS/IFRS.

Ao longo de vinte anos de investigação, temos procurado respostas para o problema de melhorar a aprendizagem dos alunos, particularmente dos desfavorecidos, sem diminuir o nível de exigência conceptual. A investigação tem-se focado em diversos contextos: contextos de aprendizagem na família e na escola, contextos de formação de professores e contextos de construção de programas e manuais escolares. De forma a dirigir a investigação e a analisar os resultados, temos construído modelos específicos. Aproximações sucessivas conduziram a um modelo que conceptualiza uma prática pedagógica que parece ter o potencial para levar os alunos ao sucesso na escola, diminuindo o fosso entre alunos socialmente diferenciados. Os estudos têm tido como enquadramento conceptual fundamental a teoria do discurso pedagógico de Bernstein. Neste artigo pretende-se apresentar o modelo e descrever as suas características, mostrar a forma como ele tem sido usado e discutir a sua optimização. Um novo modelo teórico, derivado dessa optimização, será testado em investigação futura.

The article is focused on the research that has been developed by the ESSA Group (Sociological Studies of the Classroom) and which is fundamentally based on Bernstein’s theory of pedagogic discourse. It presents the theoretical assumptions and the methodological procedures that have guided the conception of the models and instruments of analysis and the steps followed in their construction. Aspects related to validity and reliability criteria are also referred. It is clarified the epistemological positioning of the research, while discussing the extent to which that research departs from the dichotomy between naturalistic and rationalist approaches and reflects an option that rejects the strongly contextualised and idiosyncratic character of qualitative methodologies, guided by postmodernist perspectives in educational research. It is also discussed the extent to which the fundamentally rationalist positioning that has been adopted, has not coincided with an experimental design or a quantitative data analysis. The article intends to provide a basis for reflection of the potentialities and limitations of the mixed research methodology that has guided the empirical work carried out by the ESSA Group and, as a consequence, of the objectivity value of the results that have been suggested by the application of the instruments.