A view of Teresa Ambrósio's work and life (1936-2007)

Abstract

Teresa Ambrósio was a contemporary Portuguese leading woman scientist in the field of educational science. In this article, following a sociological perspective, an overview of her personal, academic, political and scientific life is presented, trying to insert her main functions and achievements in a wider context of the history of the country and the specific society where she lived. The article seeks to illustrate how her personality, political and social environment, as well as both challenges and supportive colleagues, friends and family shaped the citizen, the politician and the woman scientist who left an outstanding legacy for the Portuguese educational thinking. Thus, selected periods in Ambrósio’s life and work are placed in a broader cultural- historical context. One of the aims of this paper is to provoke a critical reflection on how a mother of four overcame traditional barriers women scientist face, at a time when female percentage at universities, both academics and students, was much lower than it is nowadays. It will also be shown how the interaction with other scientists and personalities she met have contributed to “interlace” a life that she described as a track, zigzagged pathways built up for, by, with the others.