Black university students: access to school knowledge and the process of (re) construction of identity

Name: Luana Ribeiro da Trindade
Type: MSc dissertation
Publication date: 22/02/2018
Advisor:

Name	Role
ANDREA BAYERL MONGIM	Co-advisor *
Osvaldo Martins de Oliveira	Advisor *

Examining board:

Name	Role
ANDREA BAYERL MONGIM	Co advisor *
Cleyde Rodrigues Amorim	External Alternate *
Gustavo Henrique Araujo Forde	External Examiner *
Osvaldo Martins de Oliveira	Advisor *
Sérgio Pereira dos Santos	External Examiner *

Summary: It’s a study developed in the ethnosociological perspective, whose main objective is to analyze the process of (re) construction of the identity of university students who self-identify as black, considering the racial relationships that are established after joining the university. For this, records were made through systematic observations in the institutional universe of the Federal University of Espírito Santo (UFES), in the campuses of Goiabeiras and Maruípe. The interview of the type of life report was presented as a more appropriate approach for this study, from which we sought to understand the social paths of 14 self-identified university students as blacks and 6 university students declared white, with the intention of thinking about the experiences of black university students. The results from this study showed that black discourse is initiated from a certain place, so blackness is a being black, most of the time, generated by striking experiences of racism. This process does not happen in an identical way for everyone and is happening slowly. Each one identifies themselves in a different way. It usually happens when they entered the university, after new experiences and relationships with different agents. It’s also in this space that these students begin to recall the past and realize more directly that their lives were marked by experiences of racism at various times. Most of the cases are experienced during the school period. The challenges, especially, above all, of entrance and permanence in the UFES, are not only related to material and financial matters, but also to those of symbolic order. By becoming aware of these existing situations, some students take identity as an important mobilizing factor.This, collectively through insertion into black organizations within the university and autonomously. White college students, in turn, recognize their privileges, that racist prroactices still persist within UFES and in society and the importance of affirmative action in universities. They began to build the debate on race relations and especially on quotas, after joining the university. On the basis of such findings, I have come to realize that the social paths of self-identified black college students meet at various points in their experiences, and many of these are similar.

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