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extension, popular education, popular extension, shellfish collector, oral history.
The university extension appears as non-formal education that goes beyond the walls of the institution and regular education. However, a gnosiological definition of the term identifies it as an authoritarian way when limited to a mere generator of knowledge. The same extension, when it adopts the prerogatives of popular education, converts itself in a wider perspective: it is assumed as a methodology that considers popular technical knowledge and backgroun, usually acquired through informal education, through the oral tradition of Family or Community cultures passed on over generations. Artisanal fishing is a profession, but it is also a popular culture and it is traditionally learnet by the new generations. Considering the core idea that the extension is redesigned when the idea concept of popular, this research aims to analyse if and how the pioneer Course on Qualification for the shellfish collectors from Cabedelo in 2007 used aspects of popular extension. In order to achieve this, interviews with the participants of that action, managers of the action, social actors and leaders who participated in the development of the Course, were applied. Still, as a qualitative research, it has considered the theoretical assumptions of the oral history, with the objective of telling the life history of the instution offering the course and also the individuals attended by the given course. Throughout this study, it has been identified aspects of the action that confirms that it can be understood as popular extension and that the participant community suffered positive changes after the pioneer experience of the project.