A democratização do acesso ao ensino superior no Brasil e os cursinhos populares da rede Emancipa

Abstract

The democratization of university in Brazil and the role of Emancipa Network in promoting access to university for young people from the lower classes is the central object of this study. In order to examine this object, we set out to discuss the context of inequalities that mark our reality and to raise and analyze data dealing with contemporary public policies aimed at democratizing access to university in the country. We approach the neoliberal orientations present in these policies, which are oriented, among others, in reducing the role of the State in the financing of education, in the commercialization of teaching and in the efficientist rating of institutions and teachers, that impact the organization, both in basic school and university. In contrast to these guidelines, we situate Rede Emancipa, a social movement of popular education, whose performance is based on the concept of education as a social right and a public property. The contextualization of popular education and pre-university courses and popular courses is also undertaken. From a methodological point of view, this is a research that privileged the qualitative approach and involved, as technical procedures: bibliographic study, document analysis, informal unstructured interviews with coordinators of the Emancipa Network of Montes Claros-MG - Darcy Ribeiro Popular Course - and application of questionnaires for former students of the mentioned network. The crossing of theoretical, documentary and empirical data allows us to infer that in the last decade there has been an increase in the entry of young people from lower classes in the Brazilian university, and that recent public policies, including SISU/ENEM, articulated with affirmative policies, including the quota policy, contributed to this. In turn, the role of Emancipa Network, despite its limits of action, has been directed towards contributing to “change the face” of the university, insofar as it is observed that the profile of students, in the context researched by the CP Darcy Ribeiro, is “popular, black and female”. It is also noted that the composition of the university in Brazil is moving towards mirroring the social composition of the country, being today more feminine, popular and black.