Sérgio Xavier
I have been developing and practising the Immersive Audio Unlearning methodology since 2023. My journey as an educator began much earlier, marked by a deep interest - and activity - in non-formal education, youth participation, human rights and, more recently, radical thinking.
Born in 1980, I grew up in Rio de Mouro - a suburban area between the capital and the Unesco World Heritage Village of Sintra. I graduated in architecture from the Instituto Superior Técnico (University of Lisbon) in 2006. But it wasn't architecture that determined my path. Early on, I co-founded and co-led Dínamo, a local youth organisation, where I began to focus on youth work and improving the conditions for young people to have a political voice in the municipality of Sintra.
From 2010 to 2015 I was part of the training pool of the Portuguese National Youth Council and I am currently a member of the trainers pool of the Youth Department and the Intercultural Cities Experts Pool, both within the Council of Europe. I had the honour of training the youth delegation to the World Forum for Democracy in Strasbourg in 2013, and in the European Training of Trainers in Human Rights Education (ToTHRE) for the Council of Europe from 2013 to 2014.
Between 2013 and 2017, I worked as a policy advisor to the Social Rights Councillor of Lisbon City Council, where I co-designed and coordinated SOMOS, the Lisbon Programme of Education for Democratic Citizenship and Human Rights. This period allowed me to develop and expand my work in human rights education, youth and democratic participation.
From 2021 to 2024, I was part of the Pool of European Youth Researchers (PEYR EU-CoE), where I engaged in research that deepened my critical reflection on these fields. Since 2022, I've been an Invited Assistant Professor at the School of Education of the Polytechnic Institute of Santarém, where I teach 'Non-formal Education and Lifelong Learning' in the Social Education degree programme.
I am currently pursuing my PhD within the 'Democracy in the 21st Century' course at CES-FEUC, with a thesis within Sociology of Education. Occasionally, I work as a junior researcher at CES. My research focuses on education, democracy, human rights and radical thinking, all of which drive my ongoing work and passion for challenging conventional approaches to learning and unlearning.