Overview

In the context of a profoundly mediatized society (Couldry & Hepp, 2017), teaching should focus on observation and reflection on learning processes, either “in” or “for” action, and in developing students' critical capacity (Martins et al, 2019). This is because reflection on practice is, according to Schon (1983, 1987, 1991), a basic component of teaching professionalism, as it is reflection-action that enables teachers to develop the skills and abilities necessary for knowledge-in-action (Argyris & Schon, 1979, 1996).

This reflection-action can be understood as agency, a concept commonly used to explain the social action of those who, for a specific reason, decide to act on something to bring about change. Although it is used in different scientific contexts, in the educational context it is related to the action of teachers as agents of change who actively contribute to educational reforms (Emirbayer & Mische, 1998; Priestley et al., 2015).

Considering the above, it seems pertinent to investigate the processes of curricular autonomy developed in Portugal since 2015, with the Pilot Projects for Pedagogical Innovation (PPIP), which preceded a modification of the curriculum in Law Decree 55/2018, of July 6. We see curriculum management as a complex and dynamic process that takes place at various levels, as stated by Roldão and Almeida (2018), from the central level (decisions made by the supervisory body regarding common learning at the national level), through the institutional level (at school level and in its educational and curricular projects) and the group level (through the projects that each educational team draws up for a class) to the individual level of each teacher, on a day-to-day basis in the classroom.

This work is at both the meso and micro level of “curriculum management autonomy” (Lima, 2020, p. 187) by teachers which, according to Morgado & Silva (2019), is “the ability of teachers to make decisions both in adapting the curriculum proposed at national level, to the characteristics and needs of students, the specificities of the environment in which the school is located, defining lines of action, and introducing themes that are deemed essential for their full training” (p. 46). Lagarto and Alaíz (2019) argue that the autonomy for decision-making, regarding the assessment of students' learning, is a dynamic process, in which learning is no longer done for the sake of assessment, but is also assessed for the sake of learning.

On the other hand, during the period in which this study is taking place, the world has also faced a new living paradigm: the times of digital, distance learning and the pandemic. In these new times, schools and teachers have also had to apply new terms, concepts, times and spaces to their work, considering the priority of combating the growing inequalities between pupils. The complex nature of teachers' work is a challenge to teacher well-being and teacher burnout has been recognized as a problem worldwide (Salmela-Aro, Hietajärvi, & Lonka, 2019).

As a result of new problems and continuing needs, the performance of the teaching function is likely to promote both burnout and professional involvement. In line with more recent approaches to positive psychology, teacher well-being is a growing field of study, with a steady increase in publications in recent years (Dreer, 2023; McCallum et al., 2017). Subjective well-being, as described by Keyes (2002), can be seen as a measure of mental health, consisting of three dimensions: emotional, social, and psychological.

Work engagement is a relatively new concept when applied to teachers, in terms of work expectations and commitment to tasks. Some authors define professional engagement as an enthusiastic state of the individual's involvement in crucial and personal activities, which is opposed to burnout.

The study by Matos et al. (2022) on the portrait of the psychological well-being of school-age children and adolescents and their teachers shows that the psychological well-being and mental health of teachers are related to the school environment. On the other hand, the Eurydice report (2021) presents Portuguese teachers as those who show a lot of stress at work, recommending that policies aimed at improving the well-being of teachers should seek to strengthen teamwork and collaboration within schools, develop social and interpersonal skills and the sense of autonomy of the teachers in their work (Eurydice, 2021, p.147).

Recent legislative amendments have shown, above all through the evaluative study of this policy (Cosme, Ferreira, Lima & Barros, 2021), some needs presented in the following recommendation:
1. "Monitor, as systematically as possible, some of the critical points of a process
with the demanding nature of this, namely:

leadership strategies and their impact on the empowerment of actors and institutions;
the changes produced, as well as the meanings, potentialities, misunderstandings, vulnerabilities and their impact, in the field of the transformations, to be undertaken at the level of teaching grammar and the organization of the teaching and pupil work;
the initiatives that, having as reference the Decree-Law nº. 55/2018 and the Law Decree nº. 54/2018 July 6th, can contribute to the development of synergies capable of enhancing the affirmation of more inclusive schools, where the importance of internal monitoring and evaluation processes on pedagogical practices, curricular options, dynamics and academic results can be strengthened.”(Cosme, Ferreira, Lima & Barros, 2021, p. 106)