Los patrones 'world cultural': Inequidades en la educación superior y las acciones afirmativas en Brasil

Abstract

This contribution discusses the introduction of quotas for ethnic minorities in Brazilian universities under a rather different theoretical perspective. In Brazil these policies have been recently adopted as a means of diminishing the disparities in higher education entrance for Brazilians of African descent. Since the category ‘ethnic minority’ seems at odds with the Brazilian self-perception, these policies have triggered an interesting controversy over what categories to use when tackling disadvantages in access to education in particular and social exclusion in general, e. g. class or race. In line with globalization theory in general and particularly with the neoinstitutionalist world polity-research this article suggests to view Brazil’s adoption of affirmative action in university entrance processes as one instance of the diffusion of global – or world cultural – ideas and concepts to the national level. As the brief discussion of the implementation shows structural issues are only partly addressed in Brazil.