THE UNIVERSITY AND SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION IN PORTUGAL, 1968-1978

The objective of this dissertation is to contribute to the development of the theoretical discussion on the university and social transformation through an attempt to understand the Portuguese case.;The central theoretical claim of this dissertation is that the university's relationship to capitalist domination (transformation and control) played an important role in the organic crisis of the Portuguese capitalist system, a crisis which it helped to form and develop. It is also argued that the critique made by certain sectors of Portuguese society of the hegemonic ideology and its organic relation to the process of capitalist accumulation implies questioning the university organization itself.;The Portuguese university during the period 1968 to 1978 experienced intense political conflicts and was the object of political-ideological disputes in other spheres of Portuguese society. The study of this period reveals opposition among traditional, modernizing, and revolutionary forces which struggled over the reorganization of the university.;The university's main contribution to the process of social transformation was the underground development of intellectual and political activities which nurtured the counter-hegemonic process and thereby fostered the revolution of 1974.;The question of the relation between university activity and social transformation has assumed that education is a mechanism either for social control or for social change. This study argues that the university plays both roles, and that the two are dialectically related. Control and change correspond to the conflictive nature of the educational phenomenon, which is intrinsically related to the class character of society and to the process of knowledge production and certification within it.;After the revolution the university experimented with new forms of decision-making and organization of the process of knowledge production. However, the renewal process was stopped by a new centralization of power under the hegemony of international capitalism.