Abstract
In 2003, some Brazilian public universities began to reserve a percentage of their posts (quotas) to “black” students, allowing them to be accepted with lower scores at the admission exam. These type of policies became common during the last decade as a way to fight against social inequalities, but have also become the object of public disagreement due to its potentially “racializing” character. The present article engages with the racial-quota debate, using some ethnographic data collected at the University of the State of Rio de Janeiro between 2007 and 2008. The author defends these measures as a way to diversify what have been traditionallyelite university spaces and as a way to increase chances of social mobility for lowerclass students. These facts should be considered within a debate on affirmative action, without necessarily implying that racial quotas should be the best and only solution to address racial inequalities in Brazilian education.
Highlights
F aith in the miracles of racial mixture has survived until recent times in Brazil, even though a number of social scientists have warned about the impact of race on Brazilian social inequalities at least from the 1950s (Bastide and Fernandes, 1971; Nogueira, 1985; Costa-Pinto, 1998)
Racial discourses emerged more explicitly mostly during face-to-face interviewing, or were paradoxically enhanced by “silence”. These findings suggest that urban social divisions of Rio de Janeiro are more clearly reflected within the university setting, in elite courses such as law, where the access of the lower-class was more difficult before 2003. 1 2 9 Such divisions, are not an effect of quotas; they are an effect of the urban divisions that quota policies aim to redress
The implementation of affirmative action at the University of the State of Rio de Janeiro has produced a consistent diversification of the student community, increasing the chances of social encounters between students of different backgrounds
Summary
F aith in the miracles of racial mixture has survived until recent times in Brazil, even though a number of social scientists have warned about the impact of race on Brazilian social inequalities at least from the 1950s (Bastide and Fernandes, 1971; Nogueira, 1985; Costa-Pinto, 1998). The main purpose of affirmative policies is to reduce the social differences between whites and non-whites, a fundamental question has been if these measures racialize universities in Brazil by encouraging people to feel “black” (Folha Online 2008; Fry et al, 2007) for quotas and national censuses. Such questions make a particular sense in a country such as Brazil, which has widely built its national pride on ideas of racial mixture (mestiçagem), and where racial policies might essentialize racial divisions. Other critiques, following Fraser (1997), claim that policies of affirmative action are neoliberal measures that “recognize” vulnerable groups but do not lead to structural transformation and redistribution in society (Folha Online, 2008)
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