Conference Agenda

Increasing cultural diversity and persistent educational inequalities have, in recent decades, posed significant challenges for European education systems. In Portugal, schools now frequently enrol students representing more than twenty nationalities, necessitating a reconsideration of teacher education models to address the needs of an increasingly heterogeneous society (Beardsley & Teitel, 2004). This diversity is closely linked to social inequalities that influence both access to and success in education, underscoring the need for initial teacher education curricula that explicitly address equity and diversity (Grudnoff et al., 2017). Cochran-Smith et al. (2022) contend that prioritising equity in teacher preparation is both essential and overdue. Conversely Grudnoff et al. (2017) assert that teacher education grounded in social justice should provide future teachers with the knowledge and skills to critically examine school structures and implement pedagogies oriented toward equity, thereby improving learning opportunities and outcomes for diverse students, particularly those historically marginalised by the education system. Yet, equity has become a dominant rhetorical theme in the field of teacher education (Cochran-Smith et al., 2022). The analysis of curricula in several countries reveals that the inclusion of these dimensions is residual or dependent on the individual initiative of teacher educators (Arsal, 2015; Weerasinghe et al., 2024). Even in programmes that include diversity as a theme, it tends to appear disconnected from issues of inequality and the need to reconfigure pedagogical practices (Beardsley & Teitel, 2004). In the Portuguese context, teachers are generally highly qualified and demonstrate a strong commitment to inclusive education; however, initial teacher education does not adequately prepare them to address diversity and equity (OECD, 2022). This gap is particularly pronounced given ongoing teacher shortages and multiple initiatives related to the curriculum reform (DL55/2018), assessment practices, and inclusive education (DL 54/2018). This paper draws on data from a broader European Erasmus+ project. National Policies documents, as well as, initial teacher education curricula and practices were analysed. It explores how equity and diversity are addressed within Portuguese initial teacher education programmes. Findings indicate the need to adapt pedagogical practices to diverse school contexts, integrate practical experiences with theory-informed and reflective approaches, and provide institutional support and targeted professional development focused on equity and diversity.

International literature on teacher education increasingly highlights the central role of teacher agency—the capacity of educators to act purposefully and reflexively in pedagogical contexts. A vital pathway to developing such agency is structured reflection on one’s own past educational experiences. This process enables future teachers to critically examine the foundations of their beliefs and practices, thereby advancing beyond the passive implementation of external curricula toward autonomous, informed pedagogical decision-making.

While the importance of reflective practice for fostering agency is widely affirmed, a significant implementation gap persists. Teachers often find their personal, emotionally rich teaching experiences isolated from formal theoretical training. This disconnect, wherein experience remains either privatized as anecdote or overshadowed by decontextualized theory, can inhibit the development of a coherent and agential professional identity, limiting transformative classroom engagement.

To address this gap, this study is grounded in Zembylas's theorization of emotion as a socially constituted and politically charged medium—one that actively shapes pedagogical relations and professional identity formation. Within this framework, affect is not a private internal state but a dynamic interface through which personal experience and social structures converge, thereby mediating the very construction of teacher agency. Agency, accordingly, is conceptualized not as a static attribute but as an emergent capacity that is continually realized and negotiated through reflective, affective engagement with one’s lived history and the normative demands of teaching.

Building upon this affective perspective, the study further draws on the tripartite ecological model of agency—comprising iterational (past-oriented), projective (future-oriented), and practical-evaluative (present-oriented) dimensions—as advanced by Emirbayer & Mische and applied in educational research by Biesta et al. This framework accordingly guides the investigation towards how agency is manifested and developed across its three dimensions through participation in the Feelinks game and through what core affective-pedagogical mechanisms such development is activated and sustained. The research ultimately aims to elucidate how experiential, affectively mediated learning can be translated into the cultivation of more purposeful, reflexive, and empowered teacher agency.

To translate this integrated theoretical perspective into practice, this study employs Feelinks, a creative purpose-designed emotion-themed board game, as an intervention tool. The game operationalizes the interplay between affect and agency by engaging participants around four thematic scenarios: 1) Authority, Rules, and Public Life; 2) Learning, Confidence, and Growth; 3) Peer Relationships: Bullying and Friendship; and 4) Adolescence, Sex/Gender, and Love. Each scenario elicits emotional responses across the positive-negative-neutral spectrum, establishing a structured yet open environment for affective exploration.

Through gameplay, Feelinks functions as a mechanism for affective mobilization, enabling teachers to safely embody and examine the emotional dimensions of educational situations. The process facilitates what can be termed an "experience-recognition-agency" loop: personal emotional reactions (experience) are named and shared within the group (recognition), which in turn supports teachers in consciously envisioning how such affective awareness could inform their future teaching practice (agency). Crucially, this process engages not only positive emotions like joy and solidarity but also negotiates negative and neutral affects—such as anxiety or ambivalence—transforming them from private impediments into shared subjects of professional inquiry.

Analytically, the study investigates how gameplay generates distinct affective-discursive patterns and how these patterns activate and interconnect the iterational, projective, and practical-evaluative dimensions of teacher agency. By grounding the intervention in Zembylas’s affective theory and the tripartite agency model, the research aims to foster an embodied, critical, and reflective teacher agency, simultaneously enhancing pedagogical participation and co-constructing more reflexive and supportive learning environments.

General description on research questions, objectives and theoretical framework

The support of developing mathematical skills should already begin in early childhood, because those skills promote other learning areas and lay foundation to future success in mathematics (Mulligan et al., 2020; Parviainen et al., 2024). Therefore, early mathematics education is crucial for a child's overall development (Parviainen et al., 2024). Furthermore, Scalise et al. (2020) states that mathematics is integrated into children’s daily lives. To ensure the positive development of early mathematical skills, interactive, play-based learning is a crucial pedagogical approach for supporting preschool children’s mathematics learning and creativity (Balladares et al., 2023; Vogt et al., 2018). Play-based learning also benefits all children equally, including high performers and those with learning difficulties (Björklund & Palmér, 2020; Scalise et al., 2025). Several other studies have demonstrated a positive impact on children’s academic outcomes through playful pedagogy (e.g, Magnusson & Pramling, 2018). This study is based on Vygotsky’s (1978) sociocultural, socio‑constructivist theory and Freinet’s (1990) concept of “living mathematics” to explain how children learn mathematics through play-based learning. From this perspective, child development is shaped by maturation, social interactions, and cultural and environmental influences, with individual growth closely tied to participation in community activities. Freinet’s approach highlights the importance of integrating mathematics into children’s everyday experiences, allowing them to observe and learn mathematical ideas naturally. Consequently, teachers are expected to create inclusive, supportive learning environments and adapt their practices to children’s diverse needs, levels, and abilities (Balladares et al., 2023; Scalise et al., 2020). Numerous studies emphasise the impact of mastering content and of being creative in selecting play-based activities (Parviainen et al., 2024). Therefore, preschool teachers should be confident in the core areas of early math, including, inter alia, number and operations, such as number sense (quantity, counting, one-to-one correspondence, matching one number to one object, and subitising) (Scalise et al., 2025). In addition, mastering measurement, algebra and patterns, etc. and selecting effective approaches and play activities, focusing on the content (Clement & Sarama, 2021; Shulman, 1986). Furthermore, to utilise interactive activities, appropriate materials, visual aids, manipulatives, scaffolding strategies, and mathematics language and space (Zhang et al., 2023; Parviainen et al., 2024), and involving hands-on learning and active engagement is crucial (Clement & Sarama, 2021; Zhang et al., 2023).

The body of literature suggests that strong support for caregivers’ and teachers’ awareness of and use of mathematical language in interactions with babies, toddlers, and preschoolers plays a significant role in promoting math learning among young children (Björklund & Palmér, 2020). Hence, the research suggests that children should be engaged in learning mathematics in their home environments before entering formal schooling (Magnusson & Pramling, 2018; Clement & Sarama, 2021). However, studies show that not every play aims to teach a child a specific topic directly; hence, careful consideration is needed when selecting the type of play. Thus, the current study focuses on play-based learning in mathematics, specifically guided and scaffolded play, planned and selected by the teacher, that develops one of the child's learning skills. And this includes the teacher's supervision of children in a high-quality manner (Magnusson & Pramling, 2018; Scalise et al., 2020).

Hence, this research examined teachers’ constructions of meanings about play-based learning in mathematics, teachers’ implementations of mathematics through play-based learning, and the factors shaping mathematics through play in ECE in Zanzibar.

The research was interested in the following questions:

1. How do teachers construct the meaning of play-based learning in mathematics?
2. How do teachers implement mathematics through play-based learning?
3. What are the factors shaping mathematics through play-based learning in ECE in Zanzibar?

Educational interventions to prevent gender violence in schools are proliferating but results do not always demonstrate improvement in children’s lives. Consequently, teachers feel they are not sufficiently prepared to be able to intervene in cases of gender-based violence at school (Ajduković et al., 2021) or to select the best actions to implement that will result in violence-free contexts. The improvement of education is related to the teacher’s training (Diery et al., 2021) and it is essential for it to be based on scientific evidence (Roca-Campos et al., 2021;Rodríguez-Oramas et al., 2021).

The present paper is part of the initial phase of a European project entitled ANONYMIZED (CERV-2022-DAPHNE; 2023–2025), one of whose objectives was to build capacity within the teaching profession. To this end, three teacher education pilot seminars were organised in Spain and Portugal with the aim of co-creating didactic materials to prevent gender-based violence in schools. Universities and teacher education institutions developed these materials for the consortium so that they could become Open Access didactic resources at the European level.The aim of the study was twofold: on the one hand, to analyse how the materials were discussed and dialogically constructed; and on the other hand, to explore the positive implications that dialogue and co-creation had on teachers’ awareness and reflections regarding the co-created materials. The study therefore highlights the importance of co-creation as a relevant approach to be considered in teacher education.

Co-creation refers to the elaboration of knowledge with the inclusion of the participants and stakeholders interested in the results. Currently, it is already an essential requirement for research funded by the European Commission (Flecha et al., 2018). Developing teachers’ abilities as agents of inclusion and social justice involves working in collaboration with other stakeholders (Pantić & Florian, 2015). In this sense, several scientific disciplines are already working co-creatively. Different examples can be found in Health Sciences, where, on the one hand, the need for continuous co-creation and stakeholder collaboration is underlined in order to design solutions “with stakeholders and not only for them” (van de Riet et al., 2024, p. 5) and, on the other hand, it is remarked the possible transformative impact of including patients as co-researchers. However, co-creation has not been very present until know in teacher education. In fact, historically, the didactic material has been designed by “educational experts”, without consulting the reality of schools or considering the experience of teachers (ten Dam & Blom, 2006). Although collaborative projects in teacher education have increased in last years (Jarl et al., 2024),we could not find any research that analyses co-creation processes in the development of didactic materials based on scientific evidence of social impact on the prevention of gender-based violence. Additionally, scientific evidence has shown that ensuring the importance of knowledge co-creation has a great impact on education in various educational contexts (Carballido et al., 2024). This paper makes a novel contribution by analysing the co-creation process of didactic material for teacher education in the prevention of gender violence and its positive implications.