"INFELIZMENTE, A FEDERAL NÃO É PARA TODOS”: DESVELANDO DESIGUALDADES NA EDUCAÇÃO SUPERIOR A PARTIR DA PERCEPÇÃO DO ESTUDANTE EVADIDO DOS CURSOS DA UFPR

Abstract

This study aimed to identify and analyze, from the perspective of students who withdrew, the circumstances, relational aspects, and main institutional factors that impact dropout rates in undergraduate courses at UFPR. Within the scope of the investigations, to better understand the phenomenon: the aspects of the Brazilian higher education expansion policy and its relationship with the phenomenon were verified; the profile of the UFPR dropout student was described based on their self-declaration, as well as their experiences in the withdrawn course in the context of the multiple relationships established in the educational environment, and information on post-withdrawal was produced. The investigation was based on secondary data obtained from an institutional questionnaire produced by the Dean's Office for Undergraduate and Professional Education (Prograd/UFPR), with open and closed questions, answered by a non-probabilistic sample of 1,783 students who did not complete their undergraduate studies at the institution between 1984 and 2019. The information produced was subjected to content analysis (Bardin, 1977), the thematic units and the established relationships were confirmed by the lexical analyses presented by Iramuteq and discussed based on the theoretical foundations presented mainly by Brazilian researchers. In addition to the authors who study dropout in the national higher education scenario, the theoretical contribution of Pierre Bourdieu, whose studies have been a reference in unraveling the dropout phenomenon, was revisited. This study is situated in historical sociology, proposing a cartography of access and permanence in Brazilian higher education with a verticalization for the UFPR case. Complementing the analysis carried out from the institutional survey, the investigative actions mobilized the Census Data of Higher Education and the internal administrative sources of UFPR. The research assumed that dropout is a complex phenomenon with multifactorial causes that individually or jointly impact each student, signaling the importance of looking carefully at the circumstances, routines, and relationships developed in the institutional environment as a factor favoring university dropout. The final considerations ratified the outlined hypothesis, it was verified that the institutional factors that contribute to dropout, often considered as a natural and acceptable part of the educational process, exclude and perpetuate inequalities through the existing pedagogical and educational structures. By corroborating this hypothesis, the study highlighted the detrimental impact of these factors on students.