Democratização ou manutenção de privilégios nas instituições de ensino superior: o caso dos cursos noturnos em uma universidade federal.

Abstract

Access to public higher education in Brasil has always been permeated with exclusion and inequality of access. According to the typology used in the Bourdieu’s theories, higher education becomes natural spaces for upper and middle classes according to habitus and cultural, social and economic capital. To lower classes, on the other hand, exclusion and the lack of access have become naturalized due to the distance of the capital acquired by them throughout their life trajectory. As a way to lessen the impact of this excluding system, night classes become an important factor to decrease education inequalities by making it possible for numerous social classes to continue their educational path, being able to balance school and work. The role of the State, in this regard, becomes fundamental in creating public policy that boosts a democratic public education system. The Apoio a Planos de Reestruturação e Expansão das Universidades Federais (REUNI) program created in 2007, came from the need of making public higher education possible for lower classes that up until then did not have the guaranteed right to continue their education. Amongst several acts made possible by the program is the opening of night classes in public higher education. The objective of this research, therefore, was to analyse if, through the implementation of night classes in federal universities in the countryside of Minas Gerais, there was more democratization in the access to higher education. To reach such a purpose, an online questionnaire was made available for the participation of students from four majors created by REUNI in the IES (higher learning institute) where the research took place (Law, Physics, Mathematics and Information Systems). Through the theoretical analysis of the results obtained from the respondents, we reflected on up to what point the access to higher education was democratized and how the permanence of students from lower classes in Brazilian public higher education occurs, understanding that there are other factors related to the rupture of the democratic education process beyond the absence of the State in guaranteeing such a right. Through the analysis, we identified that one of the factors is the preservation of the privileges of higher and middle class in higher education by the excluding system of study that guarantees distinct education trajectories for students. As such, the democratic expansion is limited, it is necessary to go further in the opening up of spots and making the possibility of staying in higher education to the diverse groups of students that make up these spaces possible, guaranteeing, therefore, democratic and unrestricted access.