From White to Black? A Longitudinal Analysis of Racial Reclassification in the Brazilian High School National Exam (2010-2016)

ABSTRACT

The Brazilian National High School Exam (in the acronym in Portuguese, Enem) is a large-scale test applied annually and which received, between 2010 and 2016, more than 48 million entries. During this period, there was considerable growth in the presence of black and brown candidates, whose proportion went from 51% to 60%. This study aims to investigate the reasons for this growth through a longitudinal approach, attentive to the occurrence of racial reclassification. Our results show that about a fifth of those enrolled changed their racial declaration from one year to the next. Survival analysis points to a tendency towards an increase in the number of brown people, to the detriment of whites, and of blacks, to the detriment of both whites and browns. Through a counterfactual simulation, we show that racial reclassification accounts for approximately two-thirds of the increase in the participation of blacks in the period, increasing their presence by 8% among those enrolled in the 2016 Enem exams.

survival analysis; self-declaration; racial classification; university education; Brazilian High School National Exam