Ações afirmativas na Universidade Federal de Santa Maria-UFSM: reflexões acerca da implementação das políticas das cotas raciais

Abstract

This study has as its research topic the quota policy implemented at the Federal University of Santa Maria - UFSM. An affirmative public policy that tries to open the space of higher public education to those who have few opportunities for life, mainly to social inequalities increased by recurrent historical structural problems in Brazil. It is important to analise the case of UFSM to add to the public and academic debate on the subject, but, above all, to give greater visibility to the black population that since the colonization of the country has suffered from the impacts of slavery, racial prejudice and lack of Social Justice. The study has the main objective of knowing the process of implementing the quota policy at UFSM. And the specific objectives of: 1) getting know how racial issues were included in the public policy agended in the country; 2) know the main affirmative policies implemented in Brazilian universities. For its reach, it uses the qualitative methodology, and the technical procedures of the case study, documental analysis and bibliographic analysis. At UFSM, the quota policy was innovative in its beginning, structured over almost two decades and was able to achieve significant results in the daily life of quota students. Above all, it promotes the guarantee of a less unfair future for this significant portion of the institution's students. Therefore, the results of the study point to the relevance of the quota policy to break with the recurring history of disrespect and exclusion suffered by the black population across the country.