Affirmative actions in postgraduate studies can transform higher education – 02/15/2024 – Fundamental Science

In the last two decades, the country has undergone a transformation in public higher education, mainly due to the creation of affirmative actions in favor of social groups.

Although common sense associates affirmative actions with quotas, they are just one modality in a list of public policies designed to expand the opportunities for insertion of people belonging to certain groups in spaces marked by inequality, as is the case in Brazilian higher education.

From the 2000s onwards, different types of affirmative actions were instituted in higher education, ranging from students’ access to institutions to their permanence in these same colleges and universities, to the point that Brazil is, today, one of the main global references in terms of affirmative actions and social and racial quotas in higher education.

Data from the Affirmative Action Monitoring Consortium (CAA) created by GEMAA and Afro-CEBRAP indicate that in 2021 classes C, D and E represented half of the students in public higher education, with a majority of 52.4% made up of black students , brown and indigenous people. In 2001, university students from classes C, D and E totaled 19.3%, while black, mixed-race and indigenous students were represented by 31.5% of students. Therefore, quota policies generated a racial and socioeconomic diversification of the students’ profile, a revolution in Brazilian education that transformed the lives of millions of people.

Affirmative actions, especially the form of vacancy reservation, have expanded to other areas, such as postgraduate studies. Started in 2002, this process was concomitant with the creation of undergraduate policies, but only from 2012 did these policies begin to spread throughout postgraduate programs.

In a survey carried out based on all selection notices for academic postgraduate programs (master’s and doctorate) from public universities published until 2021, the Postgraduate Affirmative Action Observatory – Obaap identified that 1,531 programs already adopted some type of affirmative action in its admissions processes, which represents 54.3% of all 2,817 programs analyzed. Another Obaap study revealed that by April 2023, 52 public universities had approved resolutions by university councils determining that all their programs should (or could) develop and implement such policies.

In 2023, this movement gains momentum with the inclusion in Law 12,711/2012, the Quota Law, of affirmative actions in postgraduate studies, something essential for the dissemination and consolidation of this type of measure in programs stricto sensu. As a result, federal higher education institutions must adopt affirmative actions in postgraduate studies to include black, mixed-race, indigenous and quilombola people, and people with disabilities.

What’s more: the writing of the article allows programs and institutions to choose the most appropriate modalities for their contexts and selection processes. It was with this in mind that Obaap launched a Basic Guide to Affirmative Actions in Postgraduate Studies, which aims to guide institutions in the process of designing affirmative actions, indicating the different possibilities in terms of modalities, beneficiaries, selection criteria and retention policies, and presenting examples of writing notices and resolutions.

Before the law was changed, we had an incomplete policy pool, since, although the opportunities for access to undergraduate courses and also public examinations had been expanded, a mechanism had not been established that covered postgraduate studies, which is essential for training more masters. and doctors with different ethnic-racial, gender and social profiles and, thus, make Brazilian science and teaching more plural and representative.

We still have a long way to go, but we are undoubtedly progressing along the path so that the transformation of higher education — undergraduate, postgraduate and teaching — becomes a reality.

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Anna Carolina Venturini has a doctorate in political science and creator of the Postgraduate Affirmative Action Observatory (Obaap).

The Fundamental Science blog is edited by Serrapilheira, a private, non-profit institute that promotes science in Brazil. Sign up for the Serrapilheira newsletter to keep up to date with news from the institute and the blog.

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