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In contemporary societies, adolescents' individuation is largely staged within the educational system, and is defined by several schooling options. This is particularly true when young people reach upper secondary education, as this transition implies the definition of a personal project. In the Portuguese context, authenticity is linked to the ‘obligation’ of choosing – by means of a compulsory vocational choice. To define a personal project that gives studies a meaning becomes a problem pupils have to deal with. Supported on empirical data based on in‐depth interviews to pupils attending 10th and 12th years of upper secondary education in Portuguese public schools, this article discusses some of these issues. Specially, we intend to explore pupils' obligation to exhibit their autonomy by choosing a school path with the awareness of risks that may emerge along with their options.

A obrigação de frequentar a escola, por um período de tempo cada vez maior, transformou a escolarização numa dimensão crucial da construção biográfica. A transição para o ensino secundário revela-se, neste aspeto, um momento particularmente crítico, uma vez que o jovem é convidado a definir um projeto (de futuro), através duma escolha de via escolar. Ora, ocorrendo numa etapa da vida — a adolescência — caracterizada pela adesão a uma ética de exploração, esta projeção no futuro pode levar a uma tensão entre ritmos biográficos (baseados na exploração) de construção de si e calendários institucionais (baseados na obrigação de escolher) impostos pelo sistema de ensino. Neste artigo, propomos um modelo de trajetórias escolares no ensino secundário que leva em conta tais tensões.

Within an already completed project on vocational choices made by students entering secondary education in Portugal, a finding has deserved our particular attention: the renunciation of influence, that is, the belief that the choice made was free from any kind of influence, which emerged as a common value shared by all the young people surveyed. Based on our quantitative data (a questionnaire survey with 1,793 secondary school students) and qualitative data (24 individual semi-structured interviews with students at the same level of education), collected under this project, this article seeks to (re)frame the denial of external influences on the school trajectory definition in the context of building the self in adolescence. We will do this by comparing the autonomy claimed by adolescents with the sources of influence that participate and support that choice. Therefore, throughout the article, we will identify who the interlocutors of students in the process of (re)defining their vocations are, which information media they resort to to support their choices and which degree of importance is attributed to such sources of information. The data presented allows us to better understand the complexity of the processes of individuation in adolescence, by framing the legitimate discourse of self-affirmation in the dense web of social relations in which it takes place, highlighting the unique role played by the school world, family and by the media.

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Background: Type II C2 odontoid fractures are common traumatic cervical spine lesions and have the highest risk of non-union without fusion. Pseudoarthrosis may lead to extreme anatomic deformation, and poor clinical outcomes. A 50-year-old male, following a traumatic C2 dens fracture treated when the patient was 44 years of age, newly presented at age 50 with pseudoarthrosis and severe C1-C2 subluxation that required a secondary fusion using a three-dimensional (3D) printed model for appropriate surgical planning. Case Description: A 44-year-old male underwent a C1 posterior arch osteotomy to treat cervical myelopathy after a type 2 odontoid fracture. Now at age 50, he newly presented with recurrent myelopathy, and marked cord compression due to a C2 odontoid-dens pseudoarthrosis, and extreme C1 subluxation over C2. A 3D model of the patients’ cervical-spine anatomy was created for surgical planning and led to an anterior C1-C2 freeing of the pseudoarthrosis, followed by a posterior C0-C1 decompression, deformity reduction, C0, C2 laminar, and C3/4 trans-articular arthrodesis. Six months postoperatively, the patient improved from a pre-operative mJOA score of 5 to a postoperative mJOA score of 14. Conclusion: A 3D model was successfully utilized to plan a secondary 360° fusion for a pseudoarthrosis diagnosed 6 years after an original C-C2type II odontoid fusion in a now 50-year-old male.

This article aims to analyze the program Network of Mediators of Capacitation for Academic Achievement which has been presented in international agencies of great prestige as a model of "good practices." The program, which is promoted by the EPIS Association, founded by a group of Portuguese entrepreneurs under the theme of social inclusion, presents itself as an innovative model of solidarity and social capacitation of young people under risk of academic underachievement and school withdrawal. The research we have carried out focuses on the following aspects: the objectives of the EPIS Association, the work methodology of the Network of Mediators and the manner in which it is developed and envisioned on the field. The study, which is qualitative in nature, is based on the analysis of a vast documental compilation and interviews with actors which are more directly involved with the program (head teachers, mediators, and local authorities). The results of the study show that the program under analysis favours a highly structured intervention which, although generally valued and considered effective, does not concede a wide margin of leadership, autonomy, and participation to local actors. On a deeper analytical level, the study shows that the creation of the Association and program under analysis is included in the affirmation process of new forms of governance and public action in Portugal, namely the affirmation of "new philanthropies" on education, a tendency with scarce tradition in the country.