Ser estudante e ser mãe na universidade: condições institucionais de permanência na UFSCar

Abstract

Contextualized in the debate about the place that women occupy in society, its specificities, and possibilities within a structurally patriarchal organization, this study reflects on one of these specificities in contemporary society: being a mother and being able to continue studying. To this end, a qualitative survey was conducted to analyze the delimitations of the assistance provided by the Federal University of São Carlos (UFSCar) to student-mothers enrolled in its undergraduate courses. This study presents the results of a search that sought to identify, in the documents of the Dean’s Office for Community and Student Affairs (PROACE), assistance actions aimed at student-mothers, and analyzes, from the typology used by Figueiredo (2019), how the university has welcomed these students in the dimensions of material and symbolic permanence and support network. In the context of few works addressing the experience of student-mothers in Higher Education, this study seeks to unveil outlines that are often invisible in institutional debates. The results revealed the non-place of these women in Higher Education, and that there are few assistance actions directed to them, with the existing ones intersected by a socioeconomic approach that includes only the poorest student- mothers.