Ação afirmativa na pós-graduação: os desafios da expansão de uma política de inclusão

Abstract

Brazilian graduate studies are marked by intense regional, ethnic-racial and economic inequalities, which led to the beginning of the debate about the creation of affirmative actions for students belonging to historically excluded groups in graduate programs and public universities. The literature on affirmative action and public policy rarely analyzes the specifics of the agenda-setting process and the formulation of these policies, or the reasons why affirmative action for graduate became important for the universities and the government, which alternatives have been chosen and what the main actors involved in the process are. This doctoral dissertation aims to contribute to the literature of public policy and explain (a) why and how the access of disadvantaged groups entered the decision-making agenda of Brazilian public universities, (b) what factors explain the adherence of some graduate programs as opposed to others that did not and (c) how the creation of affirmative action resulted in the change of the traditional selection process carried out by graduate programs. The research was based on (a) an analysis of the selection notices of 2,763 academic graduate programs of public universities published until January 2018, (b) a survey for the collection of quantitative data on graduate programs and c) semi-structured interviews with selected actors from some programs and representatives of Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES) and the Ministry of Education (MEC). The study indicates that the issue did not reach the country s general agenda of public policies, having entered the agenda of specific programs and universities due to the demands of graduate students and faculty members and the requirement of the universities presidency and higher bodies due to the Normative Ordinance 13/2016. The data collected point to a significant diffusion of this type of policy in the last 4 years, with 26.4% of the programs having some form of affirmative action in January 2018. The analysis confirmed the initial hypothesis that the meritocracy argument is stronger in discussion of affirmative action for graduate students. The deeper institutional changes the modification of student selection criteria are the result of endogenous and incremental processes that occur in the absence of critical moments. There is a strong resistance to more substantive changes in the selective processes due to the importance of academic merit and excellence, as well as the uncertainty about the impacts to the CAPES evaluation grade