Mindful youngsters in need: media experiences in Abrantes’s Gulbenkian knowledge academy

In this paper we consider the first results of working on different issues of media and communication literacy within the specific context of Abrantes’s experience of the research project, “Academy for Reading the World: Journalism, Communication and I”. This project has been selected by the The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation as one of the 2019 Gulbenkian Knowledge Academy network, among more than 300 hundred other applying Portuguese projects, and financed by for the next 3 years. We specifically address the outcomes of working communication and journalism as a learning tool, self-regulation skills and critical literacies with young students of the 10th grade undertaking the humanities course. In this paper, we analyze the experience of this Gulbenkian knowledge academy in Abrantes and assess the youngsters’ engagement in this national collaborative experience. The goal of this paper is to contribute with local empirical data for the much-needed structured knowledge about how a media and communication agenda can empower youngsters for a more demanding world reading.N/