AN OVERVIEW OF AFFIRMATIVE ACTION POLICIES IN PUBLIC FEDERAL UNIVERSITIES IN SOUTHEAST BRAZIL¹

PANORAMA DES ACTIONS DE DISCRIMINATION POSITIVE DANS LES UNIVERSITÉS FÉDÉRALES DU SUD-EST BRÉSILIEN

UN PANORAMA SOBRE LAS ACCIONES AFIRMATIVAS EN UNIVERSIDADES FEDERALES DE LA REGIÓN SUDESTE DEL BRASIL

Abstract

This article deals with how Brazilian students from underrepresented groups have access to higher education, and how is their permanence in it. It aims to provide an overview of the treatment of affirmative action policies in federal universities in southeastern Brazil. A wide range of official documents of all nineteen federal universities in this Brazilian region was analyzed. After data analyses, three categories were constructed: admission, post-admission support, and pedagogical programs for student permanence. This study indicates that a broader understanding of how affirmative actions are treated is critical if they are to achieve their goals, particularly with regard to the permanence of benefited students.

AFFIRMATIVE ACTION; EQUITY; ACCESS TO HIGHER EDUCATION

Résumé

Cet article discute l’entrée et la retenue des étudiants issus de groupes sous-représentés dans l’enseignement supérieur. Son objectif est de définir un cadre général de la question des politiques de discrimination positive dans les universités fédérales du Sud-Est brésilien. Un répertoire vaste et diversifié de documents officiels provenant de 19 universités fédérales de cette région a été analysé. Après l’analyse et l’organisation des données, trois catégories ont été élaborées: admission, aides après admission et programmes pédagogique svisant la retenue à l’université. Les résultats indiquent qu’une compréhension élargie des politiques de discrimination positive est un élément décisif pour que celles-ci atteignent leurs objectifs, en particulier pour ce qui est de la retenue à l’université des bénéficiaires.

ACTION POSITIVE; ÉQUITÉ; ACCÈS À L’ENSEIGNEMENT SUPÉRIEUR

Resumen

La temática de este artículo se relaciona con el acceso y la permanencia de estudiantes pertenecientes a grupos subrepresentados en la enseñanza superior. El objetivo es proporcionar un marco amplio en relación con el tratamiento de las políticas de acciones afirmativas en las universidades federales de la región Sudeste de Brasil. Se analizó un repertorio amplio y variado de documentos oficiales de 19 universidades federales de esa región. Después del análisis y organización de los datos, tres categorías fueron construidas: ingreso, ayudas postingreso y programas pedagógicos de permanencia. Los resultados indican que una comprensión más amplia sobre el tratamiento de las políticas afirmativas es un punto clave para que las mismas alcancen sus objetivos, principalmente en lo que se refiere a la permanencia de los estudiantes beneficiados.

ACCIÓN AFIRMATIVA; EQUIDAD; ACCESO A LA ENSEÑANZA SUPERIOR

RESUMO

A temática deste artigo relaciona-se ao acesso e à permanência de estudantes pertencentes a grupos sub-representados no ensino superior. O objetivo é fornecer um quadro amplo em relação ao tratamento das políticas de ações afirmativas nas universidades federais da região Sudeste do Brasil. Foi analisado um repertório amplo e variado de documentos oficiais de 19 universidades federais dessa região. Após a análise e organização dos dados, três categorias foram construídas: ingresso, auxílios pós-ingresso e programas pedagógicos de permanência. Os resultados indicam que uma compreensão mais ampla sobre o tratamento das políticas afirmativas é um ponto-chave para que as mesmas atinjam seus objetivos, principalmente no que tange à permanência dos estudantes beneficiados.

AÇÃO AFIRMATIVA; EQUIDADE; ACESSO AO ENSINO SUPERIOR

In 2008, Giovane Fialho, a 20-year-old student, appealed to a Brazilian Court against the decision by the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS) not to admit him into the institution’s Business Administration undergraduate program. Giovane was ranked 132nd in the admission test, but was not one of the 160 students admitted. This is because a number of students from underrepresented groups had their admission guaranteed. Giovane felt discriminated against since his selection test score had been higher than those of some candidates admitted through UFRGS’s affirmative action policy (ROCHA, 2010). At the time, 30% of the students admitted into UFRGS each year must have completed secondary education in the public school system, and half of those must be self-declared black. Giovane was a self-declared black student and, by racial criteria, he could apply for the affirmative action conditions. However, since he had completed secondary education in a private school, Giovane could not benefit from that policy.

At that time, there was a great debate in Brazil regarding the use of strategies for access of underrepresented groups to university, like the strategies used by UFRGS. In 2008, several public and private universities were starting to use some form of affirmative action in their admission processes. The so-called “quotas”, as they were widely known in the country, were already being adopted by state and federal public universities. That year, the federal government was encouraging an increase in the number of students admitted into federal universities through the Support Program for Restructuring and Expansion Plans of Federal Universities (Reuni) which involved investing heavily in the expansion of several campuses and building new federal universities. During this period, many of those universities, which were beginning to adopt incentive policies probably did so in order to receive funds from Reuni, since one of its guidelines stated that the institution should promote mechanisms of social and racial inclusion so as to ensure access and permanence opportunities for all (BRASIL, 2007). Also, during this period, the incentives for private higher education in the country began to be expanded through a program that provided full and partial scholarships for students from low-income families, called University for All Program (Prouni). In addition, student loans were becoming more attractive to these students.

In the academic field, since the promotion of affirmative actions in the Brazilian context, many papers have discussed issues related to justice, fairness and validity of those policies in the university context (BRITO FILHO, 2013; CAMPOS; FERES JR.; DAFLON, 2013; CARVALHO, 2003; DAFLON; FERES JR.; CAMPOS, 2013; SCHWARTZMAN, 2008; SEIFFERT; HAGE, 2008; SILVA; SKOVSMOSE, 2019). Others focused on comparisons between the performance of affirmative action students and other students (CAVALCANTI, 2015; MATTOS; MACEDO; MATTOS, 2013; MENDES JR., 2014; QUEIROZ; SANTOS, 2010), students’ academic and social experiences (BROSTOLIN; CRUZ, 2010; DAL’BÓ, 2011; SILVA; POWELL, 2016; WELLER; SILVEIRA, 2008), and questions related to stereotyping, social representation, coexistence and perspectives of society regarding the use of affirmative policies (ANHAIA, 2013; CICALO, 2012; LIMA; NEVES; SILVA, 2014; SILVA; SILVA, 2012).

Nevertheless, there is a tendency for research and academic work related to affirmative action to broaden the debate, directing the discussions to post-admission actions that favor the permanence of the affirmative action student, involving issues related to students’ both material and academic survival in the campus (CORDEIRO, 2010; DOEBBER, 2011; ESTÁCIO; ALMEIDA, 2016; PASSOS, 2015; SANTOS, 2009; SOUSA; PORTES, 2011). For example, Cordeiro (2010) highlighted a set of studies developed at the Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul (UFMS), stressing the difficulties faced by black and indigenous students who were benefited by affirmative actions. Those difficulties varied from scarce financial resources directed to support them materially to the lack of academic assistance programs geared specifically to the demands of this group. This situation has apparently been common to other Brazilian contexts (ESTÁCIO; ALMEIDA, 2016; BERGAMASCHI; DOEBBER; BRITO, 2018). In addition, the author noted an increase in the dropout rate of black students who enrolled in affirmative policies, and pointed out as possible causes the lack of permanence actions and the discontinuation of certain programs and projects at the institution, such as the Center for Ethnic-Racial Studies. Generally, these projects work as “safe spaces” for students from underrepresented groups which promotes their permanence in the university (ONG; SMITH; KO, 2018; SILVA, 2016).

According to Sousa and Portes (2011), the question of the permanence of the affirmative action students has been a priority in a restricted set of university ordinances, often due to the economic costs involved in their implementation. In this respect, Doebber (2011) argues that the lack of effective actions, aimed at promoting the permanence of these students has been a major obstacle to the actual implementation of affirmative action policies. The author points out that such students usually have difficulties to adapt to a supposed “profile” required by the university, thus experiencing exclusion in an academic environment that should be inclusive. According to Doebber (2011), permanence actions should also consider these questions. Thus, in order to survive in university, Santos (2009) emphasizes that affirmative action students create strategies associated with the permanence dimension, composing a material, academic and symbolic repertoire for survival in the campus. For example, these students participate in collaborative groups whose activities involve sharing class contents, helping each other with course material and providing guidance for newly admitted affirmative action students about university life matters such as financial aid, housing, and transport. These strategies cover both academic and social issues and they are an alternative to a possible lack of institutional programs and projects designed to support their permanence.

Thus, in order to contribute to discussions related to post-admission actions directed to the permanence of affirmative action students in higher education, the goal of this article is to provide, through documentary research, a broad picture of the treatment of these policies by federal universities in Brazil’s Southeast Region,² highlighting elements related to these students’ admission and the institutions’ post-admission assistance and pedagogical support programs.

According to Ristoff (2014), even if gradually, affirmative action policies are changing the profile of Brazilian public universities, making them more diversified - a fact that has been requiring more investment in post-admission support. On this point, Moya (2014) conducted a survey about the support provided by public universities in São Paulo, mapping two types of scholarships: permanence and study/research. The author pointed out that, from 2004 to 2014, all institutions in the state of São Paulo offered scholarships for economically vulnerable and affirmative action students. He also notes a considerable evolution in federal government’s investments in this support. In addition, it is worth mentioning that the specialist literature has pointed out that the development of pedagogical programs for permanence in higher education institutions has significantly contributed to the social and academic integration of students from underrepresented groups (MUSEUS; LIVERMAN, 2010; YOSSO et al., 2009; SILVA, 2016). This integration has proved to be one of the main elements related not only to students’ permanence but also to their academic progress and graduation (TINTO, 2006; FOLTZ; GANNON; KIRSCHMANN, 2014).

AFFIRMATIVE ACTION POLICIES IN BRAZIL

The term affirmative action was created in the early 1960’s in the United States when the then president J. F. Kennedy used it to name a set of public and private policies that fought against social discrimination. Before that, in the mid-1940’s, there were discussions that sought to create legal mechanisms to prevent racial discrimination in civil service recruitment and selection. In 1965, the then president Lyndon Johnson strengthened affirmative action policies and demanded that companies contracted by the federal government implement non-discriminatory hiring practices and affirmative action policies to combat the effects of the discrimination of previous decades. Shortly afterwards, the gender category was also included in those practices, and in 1972, the same requirements began to be implemented in educational institutions (ARCHIBONG; SHARPS, 2013; BOWEN; BOK, 2004; OLIVEN, 2007; SOWELL, 2004).

In Brazil, affirmative action policies gained prominence in 1988, with the enactment of the current Constitution, which provided for the protection of the labor market for women and the quota of jobs for people with disabilities in the private and public sectors (BRASIL, 1988). The Brazilian legal system, and the Constitution in particular, include opportunities for actions to correct situations of exclusion. Brito Filho (2013) points out that such opportunities may arise from public policies designed by the Executive Branch, as in cases when the government takes affirmative action measures concerning its own administration body or the establishment of obligations for individuals. An example of this is in article 93 of Law no. 8,213, 1991, which establishes a quota of jobs for people with disabilities or rehabilitated workers in the private sector (BRASIL, 1991).

In the case of Brazilian higher education, it was not until the beginning of the 21st century that significant measures started to be taken concerning the subject. The country undertook to combat racial discrimination and develop strategies for the use of affirmative actions intended for blacks and indigenous people, following the Third World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance in Durban, South Africa, in 2001. Before that, there were no ethnic-racial policies concerning access to large, mainly public universities, ignoring the findings of research that presented Brazilian blacks and indigenous people in a situation of exclusion (DAFLON; FERES JR.; CAMPOS, 2013; OLIVEN, 2007; SOUSA; PORTES, 2011).

In 2003, the Rio de Janeiro State University (UERJ) launched an affirmative action policy in its selection process, thus becoming the first Brazilian public university to use an admission strategy for students from underrepresented groups. The following year, the University of Brasília (UnB) became the first federal university to adopt such a policy. From then on, the subject began to receive extensive coverage by the Brazilian media, often influencing the opinions of society. Campos, Feres Júnior and Daflon (2013) analyzed one of the newspapers with the largest circulation in the country. According to these researchers, in the years after 2004, opinion pieces explicitly against affirmative actions published by the newspaper outnumbered those in favor of them. In addition, the authors pointed out that, from 2001 to 2008, over 90% of the editors who addressed the theme opposed affirmative policies, especially those of a racial nature. This movement reflected on the population’s opinion, creating pseudo-truths about the subject.

Giovane Fialho’s lawsuit mentioned in the introduction of this article was judged by the Brazilian Federal Supreme Court (STF) only in 2012. By that time, Giovane had already graduated from college. He graduated in Music from a private university. Still in 2012, the STF judged two other lawsuits against the use of affirmative actions in higher education. All were rejected, and the court members ruled that, in the university setting, affirmative action policies are constitutionally legal. A few weeks after the Supreme Court’s decision, the Brazilian Federal Government had a bill enacted which became known in the country as the Law of Quotas. It determined that 50% of the students admitted into vocational and higher education institutions in the federal education system must have completed secondary education in the public school system, with half of this percentage being allocated to students from families with a household income of up to 1.5 minimum wage. In addition, within this half, the percentage of black and indigenous students in the region where the university is located should be respected, based on data from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) (BRASIL, 2012).

The first step to “open the doors” of higher education was important and the Law of Quotas played a critical role in this regard. However, this opening alone may not be enough. There are other relevant aspects of affirmative action policies that can influence the pursuit of equity in the university environment. Thus, we believe that a broader understanding of the treatment of these policies may be essential for achieving their goals.

METHODOLOGY

The data discussed here were collected and organized from documentary research. According to Godoy (1995), this methodology includes examining various types of materials that have not been analyzed or that can be reexamined in order to create new interpretations or even complement existing ones. The documents analyzed comprehend a wide variety, including written material such as newspapers, magazines, literary and scientific works, as well as statistical material and iconographic elements. Patton (2002) adds to this list official publication, reports, personal journals, memoranda, correspondence and information that can record and preserve the context explored. According to Godoy (1995), one of the basic advantages of documentary research is that the analysis of data collected allows studying people or places that for various reasons are not physically accessible.

A wide range of official documents from all 19 federal universities in the Southeast Region was analyzed. Some of the data were found on the institutions’ websites. Other data were provided by the respective sectors through requests via e-mail or phone calls. Basically, these data comprised: calls for admission from all institutions for the programs occurring in the first semester of 2014;³ terms of adherence to each university’s Simplified Selection System (Sisu); official documents of the universities (charters, minutes of meetings of exact science colleges, ordinances, regulations of pedagogical programs, application calls for scholarships for undergraduate research guidance and outreach projects, university council resolutions, regulations on financial support, and reports issued by the dean’s office for undergraduate affairs and its departments); information and official notices found in the universities’ websites; e-mails exchanged with faculty and coordinators of exact science programs at several of these institutions; state and federal laws dealing with affirmative policies, as well as extensive bibliography. This survey aimed to identify various aspects of the issue, from the number of affirmative action students in the universities’ selection process to the existence of permanence programs of a financial, institutional or pedagogical nature for these students.

During the organization and analysis of data, we sought information about: the number of enrollment slots available for candidates through regular competition and through affirmative action policies; percentage of slots reserved for affirmative actions for 2014; sectors in charge of managing affirmative action policies and student support; financial support programs which consider social and racial aspects; programs of pedagogical support of general scope and also directed to exact sciences, as well as faculty in charge of developing such programs; and undergraduate research guidance programs for affirmative action students. After collecting the documentary data and organizing the material, three categories were created: admission, post-admission support, and pedagogical support programs.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

ADMISSION

Table 1 shows the number of enrollment slots for regular (in site) programs available at each university, divided in regular competition and affirmative action. The slots for affirmative actions were organized based on Law no. 12,711 / 2012 (BRASIL, 2012):

• L1 - slots for candidates graduating from the public education system with a per capita income of less than 1.5 minimum wage;

• L2 - slots for self-declared black or indigenous candidates with a per capita income of less than 1.5 minimum wage;

• L3 - slots for candidates graduating from public schools, regardless of income;

• L4 - slots for candidates graduating from public schools and self-declared black or indigenous, regardless of income.

Table 1 shows the percentage of slots allocated to affirmative action policies for 2014 at each institution, as well as the selection method used by each of them.

TABLE 1
NUMBER OF SLOTS AVAILABLE, SELECTION TYPE AND PERCENTAGE RESERVED FOR AFFIRMATIVE ACTIONS FOR THE FIRST SEMESTER OF 2014 AT FEDERAL UNIVERSITIES IN BRAZIL’S SOUTHEAST REGION

UNIVERSITIES	STATE	SELECTION	ENROLLMENT SLOTS AVAILABLE							TOTAL BY INSTITUTION	% A.A. 2014
			2014 - FIRST SEMESTER
			REGULAR COMPETITION	AFFIRMATIVE ACTIONS					TOTAL
				L1	L2	L3	L4	TOTAL
Unifal	MG	Sisu	548	116	162	113	158	549	1,097	1,097	50,0
Unifei	MG	Sisu	1,063	72	122	59	119	372	1,435	1,435	25,0
Ufla	MG	Sisu	453	23	61	18	60	162	615	615	25,0
UFJF	MG	Misto	893	197	275	183	262	917	1,810	1,810	50,0
UFV	MG	Sisu	1,806	152	258	148	242	800	2,606	3,260	30,0
	MG	Pases	435	4	128	2	85	219	654
Ufop	MG	Sisu	856	65	132	64	111	372	1,228	1,228	30,0
UFU	MG	Sisu	1,119	141	245	126	237	749	1,868	4,668	33,30
	MG	Psico	0	3	2	3	2	10	10
	MG	Paaes	0	0	0	1,174	0	1,174	1,174
	MG	CHE	59	7	13	3	12	35	94
UFU (S2)	MG	Entrance exam	1,133	68	133	60	128	389	1,522
UFTM	MG	Sisu	421	89	129	89	116	423	844	844	50,0
UFVJM	MG	Sisu	340	65	116	65	111	357	697	1,367	50,0
	MG	Sasi	332	107	62	107	62	338	670
UFMG	MG	Sisu	4,649	322	505	287	486	1,600	6,249	6,670	25,0
	MG	HE	302	16	57	15	31	119	421
UFSJ	MG	Sisu	682	133	208	133	208	682	1,364	1,733	50,0
	MG	PAS	177	19	92	2	79	192	369
Ufes	ES	Sisu	2,383	685	414	645	389	2,133	4,516	4,516	50,0
Unifesp	SP	Sisu	1,877	200	140	167	137	644	2,521	2,949	25,0
	SP	Misto	318	23	35	23	29	110	428
UFABC	SP	Sisu	978	317	174	317	174	982	1,960	1,960	50,0
UFSCar	SP	Sisu	1,347	419	271	401	265	1,356	2,703	2,786	50,0
	SP	HE	12	3	3	3	3	12	24
	SP	Indigenous	0	58	0	0	0	58	58
	SP	Refug.	1	0	0	0	0	0	1
UFRJ	RJ	Sisu	2,381	530	691	509	674	2,404	4,785	9,311	50,0
	RJ	THE	254	44	103	36	91	274	528
UFRJ (S2)	RJ	Sisu	1,826	412	525	395	511	1,843	3,669
	RJ	THE	163	36	51	28	51	166	329
UFF	RJ	Sisu	3,343	251	430	218	398	1,297	4,640	5,015	25,0
	RJ	A1	375	0	0	0	0	0	375
Unirio	RJ	Sisu	613	137	188	126	178	629	1,242	1,271	50,0
	RJ	A1	29	0	0	0	0	0	29
UFRRJ	RJ	Sisu	955	218	304	210	284	1,016	1,971	2,010	50,0
	RJ	AI	39	0	0	0	0	0	39
			WC	Affirmative Actions					Total	AA Average
				L1	L2	L3	L4	Total AA
TOTAL			32,162	4,932	6,029	5,729	5,693	22,383	54,545	41.0

• Source: Organized by the author, based on documentary research.

According to data, 11 of the 19 universities were already allocating half of the enrollment slots to affirmative actions in the period, anticipating in two years the mandatory requirement provided by Law⁴. In addition, on average, the federal universities in the Southeast region allocated 41% of slots exclusively for affirmative action students. This is a significant fact. In a recent survey, using a cross-reference survey with microdata produced by the National Institute for Educational Studies and Research (Inep), Daflon, Feres Júnior and Campos (2013) showed that by 2012 the Southeast Region had the coutry’s lowest percentage (on average, 18.3%) of enrollment slots allocated for the affirmative action policies. The researchers used data from universities all state and federal universities in Brazil.

The 41% presented here refers only federal university slots. Still, the percentage found in by Daflon, Feres Júnior and Campos (2013) is likely to increase if data are updated, as the mandatory allocation determined by law since 2012 led several federal universities to add affirmative action policies to their admission process. In the same research, Daflon, Feres Júnior and Campos (2013) showed that the state and federal universities in the Southeast region combined had the lowest racial inclusion rate in the country. This rate was calculated considering the proportion of enrollment slots offered through racial quotas and the proportion of self-declared black individuals in the region according to IBGE data. In the study of Daflon and his colleagues, the rate for the Southeast region was 0.12. According to the researchers, on average, state and federal universities combined had only 5 percent of the slots for self-declared black students.

According to data in Table 1, for 2014, approximately 21% of the slots were allocated for self-declared black students (sum of slots in columns L2 and L4). Therefore, the racial inclusion rate for federal universities is 0.49, since 42.3% of the population in the Southeast region were self-declared blacks in the 2010 Demographic Census (IBGE, 2013). This is a significant development in terms of racial inclusion in the university. Of course this rate⁵ should be closer to 1 so that black students ceased to be underrepresented in higher education. Even so, data show that the implementation of the Law of Quotas represented an important step concerning the issue of racial inclusion in federal universities in the country’s Southeast region.

Table 1 also shows the forms of selection adopted by federal universities in the region. All of them used the Ministry of Education’s Unified Selection System (SISU) as the main form of selection. However, some have also adopted additional selection models, such as the mixed process, which is comprised of the score in the National High School Exam (Enem) and the score in the traditional admission test combined. Such was the case with the Federal University of Juiz de Fora (UFJF) and the Federal University of São Paulo (Unifesp). Another model of differential selection was the so-called serial access, conducted by the Federal University of Viçosa (UFV), Federal University of Uberlândia (UFU), Federal University of Vale do Jequitinhonha and Mucuri (UFVJM) and Federal University of São João del Rei. In this type of admission process, the student takes three tests during high school, one in each school year. The final score in the admission process is formed by the sum of these three tests, and the last, corresponding to the third year of high school, is usually the Enem score. It should be noted that the Federal University of São Carlos (UFSCar) was the only institution in this region that had a specific selection process for indigenous students and refugees in Brazil. Finally, the Fluminense Federal University (UFF), the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) and the Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro (Unirio) also allocated slots for public education teachers in their admission process.

POST-ADMISSION SUPPORT

We organized data on the post-admission support category with the purpose of identifying institutional actions that could contribute to the permanence of affirmative action students in college with regard to financial and pedagogical factors. By examining documents, we were able to identify the institutions that were concerned with this issue. In this category, we sought to identify which sectors were dealing with affirmative action policies in the university and which ones had been created specifically for this purpose. In addition, we examined official documents from the dean’s offices for undergraduate affairs in search of institutional programs and projects concerned with the pedagogical development of undergraduate students. Initially, we identified general scope actions for student guidance regarding study habits, academic development, tutorials, pedagogical workshops, etc. Then we investigated actions directed to mathematics-related subjects only.

It is worth noting that some universities showed concern in this respect in their official documents, but no information was found on actions actually taken. Possibly, such actions exist but have not yet been displayed on the websites or they have been carried out by teachers or departments isolatedly. However, institutions whose concerns were only in official documents were not considered in this investigation. The pedagogical programs and actions we identified do not distinguish their use by affirmative action students or others. Nevertheless, it is important to reflect on such actions, since research has shown that this type of institutional support can positively contribute to the permanence of traditionally underrepresented students in university (FOLTZ; GANNON; KIRSCHMANN, 2014; HASKINS; KIRK-SANCHEZ, 2006; SWAIL; REDD; PERNA, 2005). Also for this category we sought to identify how universities deal with financial support to their students. Such support is provided considering students socio-economic conditions, except for a few cases where it is provided specifically for affirmative action students. These facts have been organized and summarized in Chart 1.

CHART 1
TREATMENT OF AFFIRMATIVE ACTION POLICIES AND STUDENT SUPPORT BY THE FEDERAL UNIVERSITIES IN BRAZIL’S SOUTHEAST REGION

UNIVERSITY	STATE	SECTOR SPECIALLY DEDICATED TO AFFIRMATIVE ACTION POLICIES	SECTOR DEDICATED TO FINANCIAL SUPPORT OR ACTIONS DEDICATED TO AFFIRMATIVE ACTION POLICIES	EXISTENCE OF FINANCIAL SUPPORT PROGRAMS		EXISTENCE OF PEDAGOGICAL SUPPORT PROGRAMS		UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH GUIDANCE FOR AFFIRMATIVE ACTIONS
				SOCIAL	RACIAL	SOCIAL	RACIAL
Unifal	MG	No	Dean’s Office for Student Affairs	Yes	No	No	No	No
Unifei	MG	No	Student Assistance Board	Yes	No	No	No	No
Ufla	MG	No	Dean’s Office for Community and Student Affairs	Yes	No	Yes	No	No
UFJF	MG	No	Dean’s Office for Student Affairs	Yes	No	Yes	No	No
UFV	MG	No	Dean’s Office for Community Affairs	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	No
Ufop	MG	No	Dean’s Office for Community and Student Affairs	Yes	No	No	No	No
UFU	MG	No	Student Assistance Board	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes
UFTM	MG	No	Dean’s Office for Community and Student Affairs	Yes	No	No	No	No
UFVJM	MG	No	Dean’s Office for Community and Student Affairs	Yes	No	No	No	No
UFMG	MG	No	Dean’s Office for Undergraduate Affairs	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes
UFSJ	ES	Yes	Division of Assistance and Affirmative Actions	Yes	No	No	No	Yes
Ufes	SP	No	Division of Student Assistance	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	No
UFABC	SP	Yes	Dean’s Office for Community and Affirmative Policies	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
UFSCar	SP	Yes	Coordination of Affirmative Action and other Equity Policies	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Unifesp	SP	Yes	Coordination of Affirmative Actions and Permanence Policies	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes
UFRJ	RJ	Yes	Division of Inclusion, Accessibility and Community Affairs	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
UFF	RJ	No	Dean’s Office for Student Affairs	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes
Unirio	RJ	No	Board of Community and Academic Affairs	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	No
UFRRJ	RJ	No	Dean’s Office for Student Affairs	Yes	No	No	No	No

• Note: “No” corresponds to the lack of information on the website or in the institution’s legal regulation.
• Source: Prepare by the author, based on documentary research.

The first point worth noting is that only five of the analyzed universities had offices, divisions or coordination bodies specially dedicated to questions related to affirmative action policies. In the state of Minas Gerais, the Federal University of São João del Rei (UFSJ) established the Division of Assistance and Affirmative Actions, linked to the Dean’s Office for Student Affairs (Proae). According to Resolution No. 44, of October 22, 2012, this office manages programs and projects for student assistance, affirmative actions, permanence, health, as well as sports, cultural and social activities (UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DE SÃO JOÃO DEL REI, 2012). Therefore, the Division of Assistance and Affirmative Action is entirely dedicated to assisting students at the institution, as well as managing affirmative action policies.

In São Paulo, three universities have an equivalent sector: the Federal University of ABC (UFABC), the Federal University of São Carlos (UFSCar), and the Federal University of São Paulo (Unifesp). At the UFABC, these issues are dealt with by the Dean’s Office for Community Affairs and Affirmative Policies (Proap). According to this university’s Resolution Consuni No. 50, of December 2010, the office is in charge of formulating, proposing, evaluating and conducting affirmative policies and other actions concerning community affairs at the university. Among the office’s roles, the resolution emphasizes “to develop actions to mitigate the effects of socioeconomic inequalities and ethnic-racial discrimination on the conditions of access and permanence of UFABC students” (UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DO ABC, 2010, p. 1).

At UFSCar, the department with this attribution is the General Division for Affirmative Actions, Diversity and Equity, formed by three coordination bodies: Ethnic-racial Relations; Inclusion and Human Rights; and Diversity and Gender. According to information from the institution’s website, this coordinating bodies are responsible for promoting policies, reflections and specific actions in their respective areas, as well as fighting prejudice, intolerance, and violence in the UFSCar’s campuses. In addition, they seek to strengthen actions for the permanence of economically disadvantaged students in the university through material support and guidance for students’ development and academic-pedagogical improvement.

At Unifesp, the sector responsible for affirmative action policies is the Coordination for Affirmative Actions and Permanence Policies, one of the several coordination bodies that make up the Dean’s Office for Student Affairs. Some of its responsibilities are:

1. To contribute to compliance with the guidelines of the National Student Support Plan (PNAES) with regard to Unifesp’s policies, as well as federal actions and plans in the areas of Affirmative and Permanence Actions;

2. To create mechanisms to help economically vulnerable students to access and use academic training, as well as to design programs specific to the existing demands and socio-academic profiles;

3. To design and promote student assistance policy, which includes providing funds and encouraging the creation of infrastructure related to housing, food, day care, and transportation;

4. To conduct monitoring, studies and actions for permanence and academic performance so as to identify and intervene with drop out situations. (UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DE SÃO PAULO, 2014, page 4)

The Dean’s Office for Community Affairs and Affirmative Policies at Unifesp is responsible for the division of financial support for students with special socio-economic needs. According to the office’s regulations, its attributions include establishing an interface with the other offices with a view to academic excellence by designing policies to support students, planning the budget for subsequent years, promoting policies and programs to support student permanence, such as housing, transport, food, health, sports and leisure programs, as well as pedagogical and social support policies for students, including monitoring and improvement measures concerning Unifesp’s permanence policies and affirmative actions.

The Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) also has an exclusive sector to deal with affirmative action policies, called the Division of Inclusion, Accessibility and Community Affairs, linked to the General Superintendence of Student Policies. According to information from the UFRJ’s website, this division seeks to design guidelines and propose and monitor actions to ensure conditions of access, permanence and graduation for students, faculty and university staff, incorporating class, gender, ethnic and sexual orientation dimensions, as well as regional issues such as traditional communities, imprisoned persons and other historically discriminated groups. Within this division is a section that deals exclusively with social inclusion, the Social Inclusion and Education Section. According to information from the UFRJ’s website, this section seeks, in addition to other activities, to promote the training of inclusion-sensitive human resources, to provide guidance for centers and units on subjects related to inclusion and accessibility, and to promote the production and dissemination of scientific, technological and cultural knowledge in the areas of inclusion and accessibility.

In conclusion, the documentary analysis showed that nearly all analyzed universities were concerned with affirmative policies as shown by the specific sectors of UFSJ, UFABC, UFSCar, Unifesp, and UFRJ. However, such issues were dealt with by broader sectors usually dedicated to student and community affairs. The differential about the universities highlighted above is that the peculiarities of affirmative action policies are addressed in a particular way by a specific section, which facilitates reporting on and evaluating these policies since they have staff exclusively dedicated to these issues.

Secondly, the analysis of documentary data show that all universities in the Southeast region have financial assistance policies for socioeconomically vulnerable students. This is a social achievement in Brazilian public universities (VASCONCELOS, 2010). For example, in 2013, according to the management report by the UFRJ’s General Superintendence of Student Policies, over 30 million reais were spent in student transportation, housing and permanence (UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DO RIO DE JANEIRO, 2013). In addition, data from this stage of the study also show that only four universities had a specific treatment of racial assistance - Unifesp, UFABC, UFSCar, and UFRJ - which consisted in providing, through an agreement with the Ministry of Education (MEC), the so-called “permanence scholarship”, a monthly grant of R$ 400.00 for students with a per capita income of less than 1.5 minimum wage enrolled in undergraduate programs with an average of five hours per day. This aid prioritized indigenous and quilombola students, regardless of the number of hours in their programs. This scholarship can be added to other forms of financial support such as the amounts provided in undergraduate research guidance programs. We believe that the other federal universities analyzed also provided such financial support or were working to implement them. However, no information was found in their websites or in the official documents at the time of data collection.

In addition to the permanence scholarship, the UFABC provides a financial support called “inclusion monitoring and affirmative action”, which consists in a scholarship of R$ 400,00 for students who dedicate ten hours a week to monitoring peers with physical disabilities. These students must also participate in teaching, research or outreach projects in the areas of education, culture, ecology, sustainability and affirmative actions. According to Proap’s notice of selection of scholarship holders for 2014, one of the criteria was that the applicant should preferably have been admitted into the institution through public school, ethnic-racial or socioeconomic quota (UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DO ABC, 2014). The UFABC awarded 35 of these scholarships that year. In addition, the UFABC provides an “accessibility aid” of R$ 400.00 for students with special educational needs. In 2014, 17 students received this financial assistance.

A third point worth stressing from the documentary analysis is that more than half of the universities show some form of pedagogical concern with the academic development of their students. In some cases, it was not possible to identify the action taken by the university as some of them only discussed possibilities based on their own charters, with the purpose of encouraging the establishment of programs with these goals through their institutes and departments. As mentioned earlier, these institutions were not included in Chart 1. The target audience of their actions was the student community in general, without distinction between affirmative action students and their peers. However, as pointed out earlier, these institutional practices usually affect positively the permanence of students from underrepresented groups in the university, hence their inclusion in this text.

PEDAGOGICAL PERMANENCE PROGRAMS

Data for this category were organized in Chart 2, which summarizes the main pedagogical programs found in the universities’ official documents and websites. It should be noted that, during our documentary research, actions such as the well-known “academic monitoring” were found in the official documents of all institutions. However, only broader proposals involving pedagogical programs or projects were highlighted.

CHART 2
MAIN PEDAGOGICAL SUPPORT PROGRAMS OF FEDERAL UNIVERSITIES IN BRAZIL’S SOUTHEAST REGION

UNIVERSITY	PROGRAM, PROJECT OR ACTION	SUMMARY
Ufla MG	Board of Education Support and Development	A body linked to the Dean’s Office for Undergraduate Affairs, responsible for providing support, within its scope, for teaching activities at the Federal University of Lavras. It promotes continuing education for faculty and provides advice on the planning of curricular and teaching activities, and support to management staff, besides promoting educational events and the integration of students in the solution of teaching-learning problems. It conducts pedagogical workshops for students and faculty throughout the academic year.
UFJF MG	Individual Service	Pedagogical support: it aims to reduce pedagogical deficiencies, stimulate and facilitate students’ permanence in the course and advise students with regard to the didactic and pedagogical demands. This service is available to students daily in the afternoon. Psychosocial care: it provides guidance, referrals and social and psychological assessments. It is aimed at receiving and guiding students. It is a time dedicated to listening and reflecting on daily emotions in order to provide support, help and referral to other care services when necessary. The service is available daily, mornings and evenings.
UFV MG	Tutorial Program in Basic Sciences	Linked to the Dean’s Office for Education Affairs, this program began in 2000 and serves the areas of Biology, Physics, Portuguese, Mathematics, Chemistry, and Biochemistry. Its purpose is to provide academic and pedagogical support to students who have entered the institution with a lack of prior knowledge in these areas. Their difficulties are determined by the success rate in the multiple choice questions or the composition test in the university’s admission exam (Enem or Sisu), or in the student’s performance in a regular course where she/he has failed. The goal of this program is to reduce the basic knowledge gap of students admitted in the University in order to reduce discipline failure and dropout rates and, therefore, their period in the University, while increasing training quality.
UFU MG	Pro-Rectory Graduate Projects Set	Renovar Project: seeks to reduce the failure rate in the university’s undergraduate programs through teaching-learning actions (training), as well as psychosocial service for students with more than one failure by providing a space to critically reflect on their trajectory in academic life. Study Planning Project: this helps students with the threefold dimension of learning, studying and researching by providing conditions to master methods and techniques of planning, reading, recording and academic writing. Research Support Project: this aims to support students with end-of-course projects, research projects and monographs.
UNIVERSITY	PROGRAM, PROJECT OR ACTION	SUMMARY
Ufes ES	Institutional Support Program (ISP)	This program emerged from the need for institutional action to support undergraduate students in order to promote academic success and combat retention, discontinuation and dropout in the Ufes’ undergraduate programs. The program proposes the creation of activities that promote a better inclusion of students into the academic environment, monitor their performance over the course and help them with their transition to professional life. The program can also develop students’ protagonist roles in their own education. The ISP is comprised of activities designed to involve faculty, management staff and students so as to affirmatively promote student’s sense of belonging in the courses and the University. In addition, the program seeks to overcome the concept of teaching based on the transmission of knowledge by promoting the participation of students and faculty and stimulating the experience of new ways of teaching and learning.
UFABC SP	Set of programs related to the Dean’s Office for Undergraduate Affairs	Teaching and Tutorial Learning Program: a unique academic guidance program that promotes student advice by a faculty member (tutor). The program seeks to: promote students’ adaptation to the university through the presentation and dissemination of the Institutional Pedagogical Project; to guide students towards a smooth, organized transition from high school to college, thus promoting a better academic performance; to provide the student with knowledge and reflection on all spheres of academic life; to bring students to recognize, experience and reflect on the interdisciplinary nature of scientific and technological knowledge and the relationship between teaching, research and outreach and the university environment in general; to encourage independence and autonomy so as to make the student an entrepreneur with regard to his own education and to foster students’ reflection about the learning process; to promote student integration into the academic environment; and to enable students to make curricular and educational choices in line with their interests and undergraduate norms. The tutor is an academic advisor with greater experienced and a personal history in higher education. Academic Support and Development Program: this provides, among others, guidance on studying, enrollment and UFABC bachelor-level program curriculums. University Introduction Course (CIU): this aims to introduce students into academic life by presenting the necessary tools for this new stage, which requires adaptation to the academic environment, with a new study pace and with contact with scientific research and outreach activities. The CIU discusses the following topics: higher education system and study organization; sciences and the scientific debate; mathematics in higher education; reading and interpretation of scientific texts.
UFSCar SP	Pro-Study	It seeks to support undergraduate students in developing their studying skills so as to prepare them not only for a better use of educational activities but also for a study practice that is rewarding and goes beyond academic demands. This program conducts a set of actions to maximize students’ use of their study time in all circumstances, through the following products and services: lectures on how to study; printed guidelines on how to study properly; study training workshops; the UFSCar’s program of activities for newly admitted students; a study guidance room; and activities related to identifying the university community’s needs concerning studying, as well as the implementation of actions to meet such needs.
UNIVERSITY	PROGRAM, PROJECT OR ACTION	SUMMARY
UFF RJ	Academic Development Scholarship Program	The general objective of the Academic Development Scholarship Program is to integrate socioeconomic and academic supports so as to contribute to the complete development of socioeconomically vulnerable students and to ensure the permanence and graduation of students. The specific objectives of the program are: to enable the UFF’s socioeconomically vulnerable student to receive financial assistance through PNAES resources or, where that is not possible, to make other funding schemes available; to promote academic guidance for students enrolled in this type of scholarship; to ensure that studies occur according to such guidance so as to increase these students’ knowledge and introduce them to research; to improve scholarship holders’ academic achievement; and contribute to reduce dropout and retention rates.
Unirio RJ	Set of Programs	Undergraduate Student Support Program (Pradig): this program seeks to help students’ training by making them experience an environment close to that of the work they will perform after graduation, and to prepare students in activities pertaining to their area of training, as well as to develop methods for internalizing activities related to their undergraduate program. The program also provides financial support - R$ 400.00 - for students who participate in these actions. Special Tutoring Program (Protes): this program is designed to assist students admitted to Unirio and those who fail in basic undergraduate subjects. It is regulated by Resolution No. 4,151, of July 9, 2013.

• Source: The universities’ websites and official documents.

The analysis of the documents revealed that six institutions developed some form of program in mathematics or some pedagogical action: Federal University of Viçosa (UFV), Federal University of Espírito Santo (Ufes), Federal University of ABC (UFABC), Federal University of São Carlos (UFSCar), Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), and Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro (Unirio). In UFV, the action is part of the Basic Sciences Tutoring Program, in which faculty and monitors study mathematics content with students showing difficulties in the initial subjects of exact sciences courses, such as Differential and Integral Calculus, or with students who failed to reach the minimum score in mathematics in the university’s admission exam.

Ufes, Unirio and UFRJ have a similar action, except that they do not use admission exam scores. At the UFRJ, the project is developed by the mathematics department. At the UFABC, the University Introduction Course (CIU) includes activities in which teachers develop mathematics contents that are prerequisites for undergraduate programs and where the treatment of mathematics in higher education is discussed. Finally, at the UFSCar, there are several courses linked to the so-called “Curricular Activities for the Integration of Teaching, Research and Outreach” (Aciep) which address mathematical contents that are relevant to STEM programs. Aciep activities are provided through departments and are usually open also to secondary education mathematics teachers. It is worth noting that there may have been other programs or projects focused on mathematics at the analyzed universities, since many faculty at these institutions reported, via email, that they develop isolated actions, without registering them with some specific sector, which ends up “hiding” them from university statistics.

Finally, the last point worth mentioning from data analysis was that eight universities developed calls for undergraduate research projects exclusively for affirmative action students. Likewise, we believe that other institutions also provide such programs as they are usually funded by State Research Foundations or by the Brazilian Ministry of Education. However, information about these calls for projects was not found for other universities. It is worth noting that we could not identify the faculty involved in these scientific programs due the lack of information in the institutions’ charters.

FINAL REMARKS

In this work we sought to provide, through documentary research, an overview of the treatment of affirmative action policies in federal universities in Brazil’s Southeast region by highlighting elements related to the admission of affirmative action students, forms of post-admission aid provided by universities and educational support programs. The results we emphasized show that when it comes to the underrepresentation of black, indigenous and socioeconomically vulnerable students in higher education, affirmative action policies focusing exclusively on enrollment may not be enough for fighting against inequality. In other words, the treatment of these policies also involves discussing students’ permanence and the period after graduation. Thus, a broader understanding of the treatment of affirmative action policies in higher education can be of essence for them to achieve their goals, especially regarding the permanence and academic progress of these students. As highlighted in this paper, some federal universities in the Southeast region have programs and projects that are so directed. However, many of these actions have started from isolated initiatives at each institution, and they sometimes work disconnected from other such initiatives. The creation of specific dean’s offices or sectors to deal with affirmative actions can be a measure that will benefit such initiatives. However, the present study highlights that few institutions have shown that concern so far.

Finally, it is important to mention that, in the scope of research in mathematics education, we have pointed out a number of possible practices and research in affirmative action’s entry, permanence and post-training dimensions, as well as the challenges for higher education teaching practices in this context (SILVA, 2016, 2017). However, more research is required in order to expand these discussions not only in the scope of mathematics education but in all areas of knowledge.

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• 1
  This article is part of research supported by the São Paulo Research Foundation - Fapesp - pursuant to agreement with the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel - Capes - process No. 2014/05584-3.
• 2
  Brazil’s Southeast Region is formed by the states of São Paulo, Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro, and Espírito Santo.
• 3
  Except for Federal University of Uberlândia (UFU) and Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), which had already issued calls for admission in the second half of 2014 when the information was collected.
• 4
  According to the Law of Quotas, universities should reserve half of the enrollment slots for public school students by 2016.
• 5
  It is important to mention that this rate does not consider black students that took the exam of selection and chose regular competition.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  17 Oct 2019
• Date of issue
  Jul-Sep 2019

History

• Received
  21 June 2018
• Accepted
  10 Dec 2018