A grande aposta: o ingresso de filhas e filhos de trabalhadora doméstica na universidade pública

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to understand how the trajectory of daughters and sons of domestic workers has impacted and/or influenced the process of entering public universities and their personal aspirations. From this scope, it seeks to understand the impact of the profession of the domestic worker mother on the lives of university students and how the transformations in Brazil in the last twenty years have impacted the lives of students and their families. In this context, a qualitative, empirical and bibliographic research was undertaken. The bibliographic research was structured in two areas: domestic work in Brazil and admission to Brazilian universities. With the theoretical contributions of authors such as Federeci (2019), Gonzalez (2020), Davis (2019), Farias (2019), Lopes (2018) and Brites (2013), it was possible to develop an overview of domestic work in Brazil from the analytical perspectives of feminist theory, race studies, media representation and legal perspectives. In relation to the university, the historical panorama of the university in Brazil, issues and policies of access to the university, cultural capital, racial issues, class prejudice were analyzed with the contribution of theoretical authors such as Bourdieu (1998; 2006), Bourdieu and Passeron (1992), Chauí (2000) and Mendonça (2000). The field research was based on semi-structured interviews with ten interlocutors from different university courses and regions of Brazil. The data collected in the interviews were analyzed based on three thematic axes: 1) family and school life; 2) admission to university and university life, and 3) the relationship with the mother's profession and perspectives on domestic work. Finally, with the theoretical analysis and field research, it was concluded that: the pursuit of a university degree is related to a way of trying to subvert generational poverty; mothers undertake financial and emotional investment in daughters, specifically as a way of ensuring the discontinuity of intergenerational domestic work; one of the main objectives of the students' desire for socioeconomic advancement is to repay their mothers for their sacrifice, to guarantee them a peaceful old age and to take them out of paid domestic work.