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The rationalization of the Portuguese school system, which has taken place over the last twenty years, has led to a profound reconfiguration of the network, the typology of the schools and their management. We studied the process of building school clusters and the resulting organizational configurations, problematizing their contributions to the democratization of school education. The analysis was based on statistical data requested from the Ministry of Education and, on a complementary basis, on External Evaluation Reports from the Inspector General of Education and Science. It was possible to identify the organizational diversity of the “cluster” configuration, as well as to observe its limited impact on democratization and improvement of schooling processes.

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We propose an analysis of the formation of urban spaces for the use of crack and other illicit drugs in the Lagoinha neighborhood, central Belo Horizonte, capital of Minas Gerais, Brazil. Known as “Cracolândias”, these territories are analyzed from the perspective of the ecology of crime, which raises the question about the distribution of deviations and crimes in urban centers. The study has quantitative data and a qualitative research of the neighborhood in question, which serve as a basis for knowledge of this complex social reality.

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The studies of radioactivity and the consequent flourishing of the sciences and industries related to the production of radiations left a distinctive influence in Portuguese medicine of early twentieth century. In this article I examine the ways in which the biomedical concept of cancer that emerged in that period was in close connexion with the development of “radiations’ economy” sustained by the clinical and scientific uses of radioactivity. I argue that such economy was grounded on “cancer” and “radiations” concepts and that both of these were constituted as a boundary objects that were capable of supporting (in the Portuguese context) a new institutional ecology of medicine through their mediation between different spheres of political, scientific, medical and industrial interests.

The Revista de Guimaraes, a scientific publication of Sociedade Martins Sarmento, in Guimaraes, North Portugal, started in 1884 and keeps being published. Until the first decades of the twentieth century its editorial line is associated to the transformative process unleashed by the philanthropic institution. It mobilized the local community towards the affirmation of Guimaraes as an industrial city of national relevance. This article analyzes the impact of the magazine in the transformation of the city, highlighting the articles published on science, education and industry, until the first suspension of publication in 1913.

Being a woman employed in the world of casinos implies the performance of different imaginaries related to “appropriate” femininity. What defines the appropriateness of a certain type of femininity is the nature of the functions performed and wherethose functions stand in the hierarchical structure of the organization. Based on an ethnographic investigation, this article analyzes the contrast between the gender performances of barmaids and croupiers in two Portuguese casinos. We follow a feminist theoretical line based on intersectionality, and conclude that the distinction between the gender performances of the two functions is closely related to social class.