Higher education in an emerging context: the democratization of the brazilian university under debate

Abstract

The article discusses the recent scenario of expansion of access to University in Brazil, highlighting the new public institutions that integrate the so-called emerging context. Its main objective is to reflect on the democratization of university access and permanence in a social context of inequality. To this end, it mobilizes the theoretical contribution of studies on Higher Education, presenting two methodological strategies. The first (a) State of Knowledge research, aiming to identify perspectives and trends of academic articles in the main electronic journals of the country. Also, of these and dissertations produced in the Postgraduate Programs in Brazil, about the theme of democratization of Higher Education; and (b) exploratory research with professors from federal universities implemented in the last period, seeking empirical subsidies to understand the limits and possibilities of university democratization in Brazil. The work done suggests that advances have occurred in public policies of access and permanence in the first decade of the 21^st century, although the new universities are involved in challenges of consolidating their physical structure and institutional projects. Therefore, the emerging scenario signals what we call the inconclusive democratization of the Brazilian university, characterized by the relative improvement of access in quantitative and qualitative terms, as well as by dilemmas of student permanence and new epistemological and methodological approaches in the University curriculum.