Avaliação da política de cotas raciais na UECE: a ótica de membros de comissões de heteroidentificação e de estudantes cotistas autodeclarados negros

Abstract

Racial quotas for blacks individuals began to be implemented in Brazil at the beginning of the 21st century, and their constitutionality was recognized with Law No. 12,711/2012, known as the Quota Law, which came into force during the government of President Dilma Rousseff (2011-2014). Despite being mandatory at federal universities, this legislation allows state universities, considering their autonomy, to choose whether or not to incorporate this system in undergraduate admission selections. The State University of Ceará (UECE), in this specific case, has adopted the quota system since the 2015.1 semester, based on the Quota Law. As of the entrance exam for the 2018.1 semester, by virtue of State Law No. 16,197/2017, quotas became mandatory, a measure that continues to be the subject of intense debates internal and external to the institution. In this context, the present research, supported by the theories of Gonzalez (2020), Munanga (2019, 2020), Nascimento (2004, 2016), among others, aimed to evaluate the implementation of State Law No. 16,197/2017 at UECE. To this end, the evaluation focused on key dimensions: analyzing the content of the State Law and the context of its formulation and implementation at UECE; evaluate, from the perspective of members of Heteroidentification Committees, the university's racial quota policy, highlighting its dilemmas; and evaluate, through the narratives of self-declared black quota students, the advances and challenges of the quota policy at the institution. The evaluative perspective chosen was In-Depth Evaluation (Gussi; Oliveira, 2015, 2016; Rodrigues, 2008, 2011, 2016), using a case study (Yin, 2001) with a qualitative approach (Chizzotti, 2003). Data were collected through institutional documents, field diaries, recordings of semi-structured interviews (Minayo, 2007) and narrative interviews (Paiva, 2008). To analyze and interpret the data, the Triangulation of Methods (Minayo, 2010) was used, combining the theoretical references with the interviews conducted. Based on the results of the evaluation, it was found that the racial quota system has evolved over the years, especially regarding admission and the fight against fraud, with the work of the commissions being important at this stage. However, the university still faces challenges in the hetero-identification of self-declared brown candidates and in promoting the retention of quota students, particularly those who are self-declared black individuals. This is due, in part, to the limitations of the aid available within the student assistance policy, which leads many of these students to depend on external support, particularly from their families, to continue at the institution and complete their courses.