Access Policies for Quilombolas in Graduate Psychology Programs at Federal UniversitiesAbstract:
Access policies for Quilombolas in graduate programs in Psychology through ethnic-racial quotas are a little studied topic and central to inclusion and equity in this area of knowledge. This study aimed to analyze the access policies for Quilombola students in the selection processes for graduate programs in Psychology at Brazilian federal universities. Documentary research was carried out on the announcements published, adopting 2023 as a reference. The documentary corpus consisted of 18 public announcements published by the 15 Graduate Programs in Psychology at federal universities with quotas for Quilombola students. The analysis sought to identify regional differences, the number of places reserved, admission methods, documentary evidence of ethnic-racial belonging and the effects of the limitations of the policies adopted. The results indicated inter-regional and intra-regional differences in policies for reserving places and criteria for proving ethnic belonging, as well as weaknesses in the distribution of reserved places considering census data on the Quilombola population.
Keywords:
affirmative action; quilombola; education; psychology
Resumo:
As políticas de acesso para quilombolas na pós-graduação em Psicologia por meio de cotas étnico-raciais são um tema pouco estudado e central para inclusão e equidade nesta área de conhecimento. Este estudo teve como objetivo analisar as políticas de acesso para estudantes quilombolas nos processos seletivos de programas de pós-graduação em Psicologia das universidades federais brasileiras. Realizou-se pesquisa documental dos editais divulgados, adotando o ano de 2023 como referência. O corpus documental foi composto por 18 editais publicados pelos 15 Programas de Pós-Graduação em Psicologia em universidades federais com cotas para estudantes quilombolas. Na análise, buscou-se identificar diferenças regionais, oferta de vagas reservadas, modalidades de ingresso, comprovação documental de pertencimento étnico-racial e efeitos das limitações das políticas adotadas. Os resultados indicaram diferenças inter-regionais e intrarregionais nas políticas de reserva de vagas e critérios para comprovação de pertencimento étnico, além de fragilidades na distribuição das vagas reservadas, considerando os dados censitários sobre a população quilombola.
Palavras-chave:
ação afirmativa; quilombolas; educação de pós-graduação; psicologia
Resumen:
Las políticas de acceso para Quilombolas en programas de posgrado en Psicología a través de cuotas étnico-raciales son un tema insuficientemente estudiado y central para la inclusión y equidad en esta área del conocimiento. El objetivo de este estudio fue analizar las políticas de acceso para estudiantes Quilombolas en los procesos de selección de programas de posgrado en Psicología en universidades federales brasileñas. Se realizó una investigación documental sobre los avisos públicos emitidos tomando como referencia el año 2023. El corpus documental consistió en 18 avisos publicados por los 15 programas de postgrado en Psicología de universidades federales con cupos para estudiantes Quilombolas. El análisis buscó identificar las diferencias regionales, el número de plazas reservadas, las modalidades de admisión, la prueba documental de pertenencia étnico-racial y los efectos de las limitaciones de las políticas adoptadas. Los resultados indicaron diferencias interregionales e intrarregionales de reserva de plazas, y en los criterios de comprobación de la pertenencia étnica, así como de deficiencias en la distribución de las plazas reservadas, teniendo en cuenta los datos censales sobre la población Quilombola.
Palabras clave:
acción afirmativa; quilombola; educación de postgrado; psicología
In recent decades, the ethnic-racial tensions surrounding quota policies have represented a major challenge for the access and permanence of groups included in public affirmative action (AF) policies in higher education (Bernardino-Costa & Borges, 2021), which is accentuated for groups not initially included in this policy, such as Quilombolas. Federal legislation on access to higher education in universities between 2012 and 2022 did not include quotas for the Quilombola population.
In this scenario, Brazilian graduate programs have been playing a central role in inducing affirmative action for Quilombolas through calls for proposals defined by the graduate programs (Venturini, 2021) and through resolutions by the universities’ higher education councils formalizing institutional quota policies (Bernardino-Costa et al., 2024). Ethnic-racial affirmative action consists of reparatory or compensatory policies, of a public or private nature on a temporary basis, aimed at implementing the constitutional principle of equality and reducing the effects of racial discrimination, subject to periodic evaluations, with quotas being one of its instruments (Gomes, 2007).
The exclusion of Quilombolas from national public policies on quotas for admission into higher education, as set out in Law Nº 12 711 (2012) and its update in the form of Law Nº 13 409/2016, until the year 2022, had as one of its effects the reaffirmation of inequalities (Normative Ordinance Nº 13, 2016). Regarding graduate studies, Normative Ordinance Nº 13 (2016), published through collaboration between the Ministry of Education (MEC, in its Portuguese acronym) and the Coordination for Higher Education Improvement (CAPES), provides for the induction of Affirmative Actions for Black, Indigenous and disabled people, without, however, explicitly contemplating the Quilombola population.
This gap in federal legislation has imposed on graduate programs and universities the responsibility for adopting quotas for access, as well as establishing provisions for Quilombolas to remain in undergraduate and graduate programs, with the exception of special programs, such as Intercultural Licentiateships. Lacking specific federal legislation, until 2023, affirmative action for Quilombolas in graduate studies resulted from individual actions by the graduate programs and the establishment of resolutions by higher education institutions (Bernardino-Costa et al., 2024). The decentralized nature of these policies highlights the complexities of their implementation (Venturini, 2021).
The approval of Law Nº 14 723, of November 13, 2023, amends federal legislation to provide for the special program of access to federal institutions of higher education and technical education at the secondary level, including Quilombolas among the segments provided for in ethnic-racial quota policies. Until 2023, Quilombolas, in the federal legislation on higher education, were only foreseen as beneficiaries of actions aimed at fostering permanence in graduation (Ordinance Nº 389, 2013) and in special programs aimed at improving Quilombola school education, such as the Quilombola Intercultural Licentiateships under the Basic Education Teacher Training Program.
Despite the push to implement quotas in undergraduate and graduate courses, especially after the implementation of the Program to Support Restructuring and Expansion Plans for Federal Universities in 2003, the approval of Law 12 711 and its amendment in the form of Law 13 409/2016 and the growth of black students in graduate programs, the quotas offered to Quilombolas in higher education are still quite small, so that in 2019, of the 106 Brazilian public universities, only 20% offered quotas for Quilombolas to be admitted into undergraduate programs (Freitas et al., 2021). In 2020, of the 67 federal universities, only 16 implemented a quota system for Quilombola access to undergraduate programs (Freitas et al., 2022). Among the 33 federal universities with resolutions providing for affirmative action in graduate studies, 10 of them define Quilombolas as beneficiaries and 22 of them include Quilombolas in the broader set of vacancies for Black people, without considering their specificity and uniqueness (Bernardino-Costa et al., 2024).
In the same regard, between 2011 and 2020, the National Graduate Plans (Planos Nacionais de Pós-Graduação ) did not mention affirmative action, revealing a notable gap when it comes to outlining the profile of students involved in master’s and doctoral programs. In part, this gap stems from the fact that the so-called Quota Law was passed in 2012, i.e., after the approval of the last National Graduate Plan (Plano Nacional de Pós-Graduação, PNPG) (Ministry of Education, 2010). The year 2024 marks a turning point in this scenario, with the inclusion of Quilombolas in the Preliminary Document of the National Graduate Plan (PNPG) and the establishment of the expansion of ethnic and racial diversity as one of the main goals of Brazilian graduate programs for the next decade (Ministry of Education, 2024).
Despite the delay in including AFs in the National Graduate Plans, since the evaluation of graduate programs carried out in the 2017-2020 quadrennial, after the approval of Normative Ordinance Nº 13/2016, the National Graduate System began to include the explanation of AF policies in the report informed by each Graduate Program as one of the evaluation parameters. Different area documents now include the AF policies adopted by graduate programs and accessibility policies as one of the evaluation items for these programs. Thus, the Area Documents, which establish guidelines for new proposals and the assessment of existing graduate programs, have been playing an inductive role in the adoption of AFs in the graduate programs.
In the case of Psychology, the Area Document, published in 2023, now includes a section dedicated to the affirmative actions adopted by the graduate programs, without, however, directly mentioning Quilombolas. The area documents have an axial propositional nature for the policies adopted in the graduate programs in Psychology, as they establish criteria for the approval, monitoring and assessment of the graduate programs. According to the guidelines of the Psychology area document, it is now mandatory for new course proposals to describe the institutional mechanisms available to foster the inclusion and permanence of under-represented groups in graduate programs, covering issues of gender and ethnic-racial belonging, both in the student body and in the teaching staff (Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel - CAPES, 2019).
In a survey carried out by the National Association of Graduate Studies in Psychology (Associação Nacional de Pós-Graduação em Psicologia, ANPEPP) in 2022, based on the answers provided by 63 of the 101 Graduate Programs in Psychology currently in operation in the country, around 23 have resolutions approved by university bodies that deal with AFs or regulate quotas in Graduate Studies; 52% of the Programs implemented the reservation of places for quota students in 2021, corresponding to 12.2% of the total enrolled. The report also points out that the graduate programs with the highest proportion of quota students are in public institutions, in the Southeast and South regions of the country, and are evaluated with grades 4 and 5 by CAPES (ANPEPP, 2022). However, in the report prepared by ANPEPP, there is no analysis of AFs for Quilombolas in graduate studies in the area.
Considering this scenario, this study aimed to analyze the access policies for Quilombola students in the selection processes of graduate programs in Psychology at Brazilian federal universities. Through documentary research, we investigated the announcements (called editais) of these programs with a view to contributing to the improvement of policies for access and permanence of Quilombola students, highlighting the essential role of ethnic-racial quotas in promoting inclusion and racial equality in graduate programs in Psychology.
Method
This study is characterized as documentary research, which makes it possible to analyze social practices, denaturalize them and break with crystallizations that hinder processes of social and institutional change (Lemos et al., 2015). In this sense, administrative documents, such as public announcements, come to occupy an important place in the analysis of broader social processes, as is the case with affirmative action policies in Psychology graduate programs in Brazil.
Participants
The documentary corpus of this study was made up of 18 announcements of the selection processes of 15 graduate programs in Psychology at federal universities, with quotas for Quilombolas, made available on their websites and published for student admission in 2023. The graduate programs whose announcements were analyzed are distributed in the following states of the federation: Pará, Bahia, Pernambuco, Rio Grande do Norte, Minas Gerais, Distrito Federal, Mato Grosso and Rio Grande do Sul.
The choice of graduate programs at federal universities is due to the fact that, while abiding by the principle of university autonomy, through Law Nº 12 711/2012, regulated by Decree Nº 7 824/2012, in its art. 5, §3, they were authorized to implement the reservation of places in graduate programs through affirmative action, which they do, mostly supported by their own institutional resolutions Federal Public Defender’s Office (Defensoria Pública da União – DPU) & Brazilian Association of Black Researchers (Associação Brasileira de Pesquisadores Negros – ABPN) (Associação Brasileira de Pesquisadores Negros, 2022).
The adoption of the year 2023 as a reference for the selection of calls for proposals, in turn, is based on the finding that the year 2022, when ten years of the implementation of the Quota Law in Brazil were celebrated, was marked by a significant growth in graduate programs in the area that adopt AFs. The diagnosis of Affirmative Action in Psychology Graduate Programs, conducted by ANPEPP, highlights that the period from 2017 to 2020 was marked by the expansion of affirmative action measures in Psychology Graduate Programs, with an increasing number of graduate programs implementing AFs (ANPEPP, 2022).
As inclusion criteria for the graduate programs whose announcements were analyzed, we adopted: (1) graduate programs classified as belonging to the area of Psychology by CAPES; (2) graduate programs offering affirmative action vacancies for Quilombolas; and (3) Graduate programs linked to federal universities. As for exclusion criteria, we adopted: (1) the lack of available public announcement documents; and (2) the absence of a selection process in the reference year. It is worth noting that all graduate programs have made public announcements available on their institutional websites, so there were no exclusions.
Instruments
This study involved the use of two instruments to carry out the research: a database to store the documents collected and an Excel spreadsheet that enabled selection, coding and subsequent analysis of the material.
Procedure
Data collection. The documents were collected from June to December 2023. The Sucupira Platform, which is maintained by CAPES and gathers official data on graduate programs in Brazil, was searched to identify graduate programs in Psychology linked to federal universities. Next, a survey was carried out of the announcements for graduate programs in Psychology at federal universities, with a reference year of 2023, on the websites of the respective graduate programs, which were coded in a spreadsheet and stored in a database in Excel format.
Data analysis. The calls for proposals were analyzed in two stages. In the first, the graduate programs in Psychology at federal universities whose announcements included places for Quilombolas were selected, totaling 15 graduate programs and 18 announcements, out of the 52 graduate programs in Psychology at 34 federal universities identified, taking the year 2023 as a reference. The second stage, in contrast, consisted of analyzing the 18 public announcements with vacancies for Quilombola students, considering the following axes: (1) existing vacancies and reservation of vacancies for Quilombolas; (2) modalities of admission for Quilombola students and the requirement for a foreign language proficiency exam; and (3) documentary proof of ethnic belonging for Quilombola students.
For each axis, some of the effects of the Quilombola access policies adopted by the graduate programs on the promotion of ethnic-racial equality were problematized.
Ethical Considerations
This study used only pre-existing aggregated public data made available on open access digital platforms as documentary sources, without individual identification, and dispensed with submission to the CEP/Conep (Ethics Research Committee/National Research Ethics Committee) System in accordance with National Health Council (Conselho Nacional de Saúde) CNS Resolution Nº 510 of 2016.
Results
Existing vacancies and reserve vacancies for Quilombolas
Considering the number of graduate programs in Psychology at federal universities whose public announcements offer places for Quilombolas, and the population estimates of Quilombolas in the country according to data from the Demographic Census of the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics - Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (IBGE, 2023), the number of graduate programs with places for Quilombolas in each region does not match their population density.
Thus, regarding the proportion of psychology graduate programs at federal universities with AFs for Quilombolas in each region, among the three regions with the highest Quilombola population density, in the Northeast, which has the highest Quilombola population estimate in the country, corresponding to 68.19% (905,415 inhabitants) of the 16 graduate programs identified, only 37.5% of them, i.e., six graduate programs have reserved places for Quilombolas. In the Southeast, the second region with the largest Quilombola contingent in the country, corresponding to 13.73% (182,305 Quilombola inhabitants) of the 15 graduate programs identified, 13.73%, i.e., only two of them have reserved places for Quilombolas. In the Northern region, the third with the largest Quilombola presence, corresponding to 12.51% (166,069 inhabitants) of the five (20%) graduate programs identified, only one has places reserved for Quilombolas.
Turning to the regions with the smallest Quilombola populations, the graduate programs have quite different distributions of places. In the Midwest region, with an estimated 44,967 inhabitants, or just 3.38% of the country’s Quilombola population, 62.5% of the eight graduate programs offer reserved places for Quilombolas. In the Southern region, which has the lowest population estimate of Quilombolas in the country, 2.19% of Brazil’s Quilombola population (29,056 inhabitants), only 12.5% of the graduate programs, or one of the eight in existence, have reserved places for Quilombolas.
In the 15 graduate programs in Psychology at federal universities with affirmative policies for Quilombolas that were analyzed, two policies were identified regarding the distribution of places for Quilombolas. In the first modality, corresponding to 46.66% of the graduate programs, the announcements provide for the exact number of places for Quilombolas, and it is adopted by seven graduate programs, one of which is located in the Northern region, two in the Northeast and four in the Midwest. In the second modality, corresponding to 53.33% of the graduate programs, the announcements provide for Quilombolas in the vacancy policies, but without a specific reservation (i.e., without an exact number of vacancies for this population group), implemented by eight graduate programs, four of which are in the Northeast, one in the Midwest, two in the Southeast and one in the Southern region.
Table 1 shows the policies for admission and reservation of places for Quilombolas in Psychology graduate programs, including information on the geographical region, total places on offer, open enrollment places, affirmative action places, number of places specifically for Quilombolas (when this information was available), and the number of places for Quilombolas).
Considering the allocation of places for Quilombolas in the broader set of places made available by the graduate programs, the announcements reveal regional and intra-regional disparities in the policies for distributing and reserving places. According to Table 1, the number of places reserved for Quilombolas in the graduate programs analyzed does not match the proportion of this population in each state, according to data provided by the 2022 Demographic Census (IBGE, 2023). In Bahia, where 2.81% of the population is Quilombola, each of the two graduate programs analyzed reserves one place for this population group. In Pará, the second state with the highest percentage of Quilombola population in the country (1.66%), the graduate program analyzed provides three places for Quilombolas. Universidade de Brasília (UnB), located in Brasília, the Federative Unit (DF) with the smallest Quilombola population (0.010%), reserves a total of nine places for Quilombolas in the four graduate programs analyzed. In the other graduate programs analyzed, located in Rio Grande do Norte, Pernambuco, Mato Grosso and Rio Grande do Sul, with 0.68%, 0.87%, 0.32% and 0.16%, respectively, Quilombolas in their population, there are no places reserved for this population group, and they are listed in aggregate with the other beneficiary groups.
In the Northern region, the only graduate program with places for Quilombolas offered 78 places, of which 15 were designated for AFs, approximately 19.23% of the total places offered, and three places offered for Quilombolas, corresponding to 3.84% of the total places. In the Northeast, of the 213 places on offer, 85 are for affirmative action, approximately 39.9%, and two for Quilombolas, or 0.94% of the total places. It is worth noting that four graduate programs in the Northeast did not indicate an exact number of places for Quilombolas.
In the Midwestern region, of the 226 vacancies, 67 are earmarked for AFs, which corresponds to approximately 29.65%, with nine specifically reserved for Quilombolas, around 3.98% of the total vacancies. It is worth noting that one of the graduate programs in the Central-West region did not allocate an exact number of places to Quilombolas, included in the broader context of the Black population.
In the Southeast region, the two graduate programs that provide quotas for Quilombolas are allocated 24 places to AFs out of the 60 existing places, i.e., approximately 40% of the total, without reserving an exact number of places for Quilombolas. Similarly, in the Southern region, the exact number of places for Quilombolas was not identified, as they are part of a wider group of beneficiaries with no specific reservation for each group. The only graduate program in the area, in the Southern region that offers places for Quilombolas out of a total of 14 places, provides three places for affirmative action, corresponding to approximately 21.43% of the total number of vacancies.
Admission methods for Quilombola students and the requirement for a foreign language proficiency exam
All of the Psychology graduate programs analyzed with places for Quilombolas adopted the same selection processes for this ethnic-racial group as those for the general public, and there were no specific selection processes for Quilombolas in the year in question. The announcements provide that candidates enrolled in the ethnic-racial quotas follow the stages and assessment criteria applied to the general selection process, including theoretical tests, proficiency exams, research projects, arguments etc.
Therefore, the selection processes adopted do not consider the unique educational backgrounds of the different social groups and the project of historical reparation of ethnic-racial inequalities in access to education that underpinned the creation of the AFs in the country. Special selection processes for Quilombolas can be adopted by graduate programs, with their own procedures and stages, different from the broad vacancy dispute, such as the graduate program in Anthropology at UnB, which requires a dossier that includes an academic memorial, a CV and a letter from the community, as well as an oral exam and comprehension of a text in English language (Bernardino-Costa et al., 2024).
Regarding the requirement of foreign language proficiency for access to graduate programs, none of the 15 Psychology programs with quotas for Quilombolas, whose announcements were analyzed, provided for different treatment for Quilombola beneficiaries of affirmative action. Of the graduate programs analyzed, 12 required a proficiency test as a mandatory requirement in the selection process. Only two did not include foreign language proficiency in the selection process. Only one of them required proof of proficiency by the 18th month of the course.
The need to master a foreign language for graduate training in Psychology is undeniable, considering the majority of languages used in publications in the field. However, requiring proficiency in a foreign language as a mandatory requirement in the selection process could reduce the admission of Quilombolas, due to the access difficulties to learning foreign languages for groups with educational trajectories marked by ethnic-racial inequalities.
Documentary proof of ethnic belonging for Quilombola students
Moving on to the documentation required in the selection processes, the announcements provide that, in the process of proving the Quilombola status, the eligibility of the candidate to access the quotas destined for this ethnic-racial group is assessed. Three types of documents are requested, with variations between graduate programs, which can present their own discursive genres, varying from the format of a letter, declaration or form: a self-declaration document, a collective document of belonging signed by local leaders and a certification document from the Palmares Cultural Foundation (Fundação Cultural Palmares, FCP) recognizing the community as a Quilombo remnant.
According to Table 2, which focuses on the requirement for documentary proof of ethnic belonging for Quilombolas in the selection processes of the graduate programs in Psychology, in all regions there is a request for some form of declaration of belonging to the ethnic-racial group. Of the 15 graduate programs, 11 request self-declaration of ethnic belonging and 14 request a collective document of ethnic belonging signed by community leaders.
Thus, according to Table 2, in the Midwestern region, the five programs with AFs for Quilombolas require a self-declaration document and a collective document of belonging signed by local leaders, without requiring proof of recognition by the FCP.
In the Northeast, the graduate programs require a self-declaration document, a collective document of belonging, and three of them also request recognition by the FCP as a complement to the documentation. In the Southeast, one of the graduate programs, in addition to the self-declaration, requests certification by the FCP on a mandatory basis. Moreover, a graduate program in the same region, in the absence of a collective declaration of belonging, provides for an interview with a special internal verification committee. In the Southern region, the requirement for a declaration of belonging with collective testimony, signed by leaders, prevails.
In the Northern region, the public announcement analyzed, unlike the others, only asks for the candidate’s self-declaration document and, in it, the candidate must fill in their name, Social Security Number, ID document number, issuing body and explicitly declaration stating their ethnicity, choosing from the available options: Indigenous, Quilombola or Black.
Data AvailabilityThe datasets generated and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
Discussion
In the graduate program in Psychology at federal universities, the affirmative action access policies for Quilombolas adopted in the analyzed programs reflect the importance of the efforts undertaken by these programs, which are a minority in the broader set of graduate programs in the area. Throughout this study, we have tried to highlight some of these efforts. Of the 52 psychology graduate programs at federal universities, only 15, approximately 29%, adopted AF policies for Quilombolas in 2023, with a view to reducing the barriers they face in accessing graduate training. The small number of graduate programs with affirmative action for Quilombolas among the graduate programs of federal universities that implement AFs may to some extent derive from the concentration of Psychology graduate programs in large urban centers in the South and Southeast regions (ANPEPP, 2022), without a necessary dialogue with the demands and history of rural Quilombola Black communities (Fernandes et al., 2020).
With regard to the policies for distributing and reserving places for Quilombola students in the graduate programs in Psychology at Brazilian federal universities, the announcements analyzed indicate that the distribution of reserved places do not follow the population estimates of Quilombolas in each region. Inter-regional and intra-regional differences in the reservation of places for Quilombolas in the absence of federal legislation can be attributed, in part, to the history of inclusion of the graduate programs themselves and the federal universities in which they are inserted (Lourenço, 2016), which translate into resolutions specific to the institutions and an understanding of Quilombola cultural specificity within the broader Black population (Bernardino-Costa et al., 2024). Stipulating the exact number of places reserved for each population group in the public announcements is in line with the constitutional guarantee of universal access to education.
Data on the number of Quilombola students graduating from undergraduate Psychology courses is essential for refining the analysis of the strategies adopted by graduate programs in future years. Up to 2022, Instituto Nacional de Estudos e Pesquisas Educacionais Anísio Teixeira - INEP’s databases on higher education, especially the Higher Education Census, did not provide sufficient information on Quilombola graduates, since this group was not universally included in the government’s affirmative action policies for access to higher education in the form of quotas. (Instituto Nacional de Estudos e Pesquisas Educacionais Anísio Teixeira [INEP], 2023).
The Midwest region, which has the highest number of graduate programs with quotas for Quilombolas, has the second lowest population density in the country. The Northeast region, with the highest Quilombola population estimate and the highest density of graduate programs in operation, is not the one with the highest number of graduate programs with quotas for Quilombolas and reserved places on offer. The variations between the psychology graduate programs at federal universities with places for Quilombolas demonstrate the complexity of inclusion policies in graduate programs in the different regions of Brazil, as well as the relevance of systematic studies that allow for progress as an area of knowledge, safeguarding the autonomy of university institutions and graduate programs.
The higher number of places reserved for Quilombolas in Psychology graduate programs at federal universities in the Midwest region is related to the history of inclusion of Quilombolas at federal universities in the region (Lourenço, 2016). It is important to note that this history of greater inclusion of Quilombolas does not necessarily coincide with a greater number of affirmative actions in the region, which ranks second to last in the number of graduate programs with AFs in the country. According to Bernardino-Costa et al. (2024), the Northeast is the region with the highest number of graduate programs with affirmative action, followed by the Southeast, South, Midwest and North.
In the Northeastern region, despite the highest Quilombola population density in the country and the concentration of the largest number of graduate programs with AFs, only two graduate programs in the same federation union offer an exact number of places for Quilombolas. Further studies are needed to identify the factors that lead to the low number of places reserved for Quilombolas in the region, one of which is a survey of Quilombola graduates from Psychology undergraduate programs. The Sucupira Platform does not have consistent data on Quilombola students and alumni from graduate programs.
The lack, in all the graduate programs analyzed, of specific selection processes for Quilombolas that are sensitive to the educational barriers that mark their formative trajectories, including access to foreign languages, represents a nodal point that needs to be addressed in order to improve the mechanisms for promoting racial equality. Even universities that adopt specific selection processes for Quilombolas in undergraduate programs do not necessarily do so in graduate programs (DPU & ABPN, 2022).
The adoption of specific or special selection processes can help increase access for Quilombola students and other underrepresented groups to graduate programs (Fôlha & Rocha, 2023), including reducing the requirement to pass foreign language proficiency at the time of selection and adopting their own procedures that are different from those applied to the general vacancy dispute. The existence of quotas for Quilombolas in graduate programs is not enough for their inclusion, and it is essential to implement specific calls for proposals that take into account their differentiated life and educational trajectories, which are marked by different processes of colonization, nor the assumption that graduation would be a condition for Quilombola candidates to access the same selection processes applied to the general selection process in graduate programs (Bernardino-Costa et al., 2024).
Regarding documentary proof of the condition of ethnic belonging as a Quilombola, the request for a self-declaration of ethnic belonging combined with the declaration of ethnic belonging signed by Quilombola leaders, adopted by the majority of graduate programs, strengthens the recognition of the history of formation of the Black Quilombola people in the country and their right to collective ethnic identity self-recognition (Coordenação Nacional de Articulação das Comunidades Negras Rurais Quilombolas [CONAQ], 2022). On the other hand, the certification document, requested as compulsory by a graduate program in the Northeast and by one in the Southeast, issued by the Fundação Cultural Palmares, via an electronic process, for higher education students belonging to Quilombola communities, only covers titled territories and could be a barrier to access if applied as a compulsory document. Given the length of the legal recognition process, since many Quilombola communities are still awaiting recognition, this requirement could create obstacles to these communities’ access to graduate programs. The number of certified communities is low in all regions.
The absence of a request for collective confirmation of recognition of ethnic belonging for Quilombolas, in the form of a document signed by leaders, as is the case for graduate program in the Northen region, which only requests self-declaration, can open up space for possible fraud and intensify conflicts arising from the expropriations faced by Quilombolas, including those related to their identities.
According to a report by the National Coordination for the Articulation of Quilombola Communities (Coordenação Nacional de Articulação das Comunidades Quilombolas - CONAQ), only 162 of the 3,477 communities already recognized hold title to their land (Terra de Direitos, 2021). In this sense, Quilombola communities as ethnic groups cannot be reduced to predetermined models, highlighting the importance of affirmative policies that respect and consider this diversity (Lourenço, 2016).
The building of a Quilombola identity, i.e., of ethnic belonging, is a process determined by the way in which each community appropriates the concept of Quilombo (Fernandes et al., 2020). It is not a static identity, imposed or defined externally, but an attempt to create a common plan that unites ways of being and existing in the struggle for rights, which allows rural Black communities to differentiate and identify themselves, establishing a sense of community and collective demands for the recognition and titling of their territories, as well as access to education that is sensitive to the specificities of their ways of life.
Affirmative action in graduate programs has an epistemological transformative potential and carries with it the ability to instigate a profound transformation in scientific research in universities (Bernardino-Costa & Borges, 2021), which requires changes in the selection processes for access in order to consider the singularities of the formative trajectories of ethnic-racial groups underrepresented in the sciences. In Psychology, as an area of knowledge, we do not have systematized data on the effective use of quotas reserved for Quilombolas in graduate programs, nor on the number of Quilombola graduates from Psychology undergraduate courses, which is a limitation for the research carried out in this study. The enrollment of Quilombolas in Psychology undergraduate programs is recent when compared to other areas of knowledge, such as undergraduate programs in Education.
Thus, the access policies adopted by Psychology graduate programs to increase the presence of Quilombolas in graduate programs of federal universities analyzed in this study bear witness to the implementation of efforts to promote racial equality. In this context, there is a need to understand and analyze the implementation of affirmative policies for Quilombolas based on implementation experiences, as well as future studies on access policies for Quilombolas in graduate programs in the area linked to state, confessional and private universities. The analysis and monitoring of existing initiatives in graduate programs in Psychology is key for improving and extending the scope of the actions developed in the area, and this study is a contribution in this direction.
It is expected that this article will contribute to identifying barriers specific to graduate selection processes that are imposed on the academic trajectories of Quilombola people to access graduate programs in Psychology, since, despite the increased presence of underrepresented ethnic-racial groups in the sciences, the access of Quilombolas to graduate programs in the area at federal universities is still in its infancy.
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How to cite this article:
Galindo, D. C. G., Santos, Z. F., Ferreira, S. L., Souza, N. C. R., Almeida, E. S., & Silva, I. S. (2025). Access policies for quilombolas in graduate psychology programs at federal universities. Paidéia (Ribeirão Preto), 35, e3514. https://doi.org/10.1590/1982-4327e3514
Edited by
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Associate editor:
Clarissa Mendonça Corradi-Webster
Data availability
The datasets generated and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
Publication Dates
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Publication in this collection
24 Oct 2025 -
Date of issue
2025
History
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Received
15 May 2024 -
Accepted
30 Jan 2025 -
Reviewed
23 Oct 2024
