This text discusses the main results of an investigation that had as its objective to understand the use of the resources and spaces of the University of São Paulo by a group of students with economical and educational disadvantages. Starting from a critical revision of the national and foreign bibliography on the path of students stemming from society's poorer layers that arrive at higher education and of the interpretation of the empiric data gathered, a reflection is made about what those students effectively take of the structure propitiated by the university. The investigation aims to verify how the socialization process happened in the family atmosphere; as well as how happened the reconstruction of the entrance path and the traffic in the academical atmosphere through the understanding of daily life, the adaptation to the academic language, the accomplishment of academic tasks, besides the contact with individuals of similar origin as well as from other social strata. The research used the qualitative methodology through two phases: focal groups and semi-structured interviews with the objective of refining the main categories to appear. This paper hopes to contribute in the reflection on the current debates around the social inclusion in the higher education through integrating a discussion on the effective permanence to the analysis of the access to the university, where the focus becomes a more detailed study of the differences in the quality of the education received by the several present social segments in the public university.
educacional unequalities; higher education; social and economic elites; public university; social inclusion