The central role of evaluation within the context of contemporary educational policies has been the object of many sociological studies, although the signs of their reception in Portugal are still quite tenuous. The present work seeks an understanting of political and economical changes in contexts where the conservative and neoliberal rebirth took place earlier, in order to draw some of their implications over the renewal of the educational and evaluation studies. Since the redefinition of the role of the State and the recovering of the market ideology are two of the essential dimensions of these changes, the role of educational evaluation will be analysed with reference to them. A further (re)articulation will look at evaluation in relation to the community within an emancipatory, rather than regulatory, perspective. From the adopted theoretical framework a succinct reference will be made to the specific nature of changes in educational evaluation occurring in Portugal in the early 90s.
