A mistificação social da universidade: crenças de professores sobre a formação e o trabalho acadêmico

Abstract

This research investigates the university as a symbolic space in which students are inserted when they start undergraduate studies, problematizing the classifications of professors as dominant agents in the field and influential on socially inclusive education. The general objective of this study is to analyze the beliefs about academic education and work expressed by professors in departments with high dropout and retention rates, aiming to understand how meritocratic or gift ideologies permeate the university field. This is a qualitative and field study, approaching a relational investigation defended by Pierre Bourdieu and Loic Wacquant. The data collection instruments are bibliographic and documentary research, analysis of Lattes curricula and in-depth interviews with university professors from departments that offer subjects with high dropout and retention rates. The data were analyzed through triangulation and discussed, in particular, with contributions from Pierre Bourdieu. The results lead us to infer that meritocracy is present in educational beliefs and in the selection that occurs through the education system, including universities. The organization of the professors’ Lattes curricula presents professional profiles with particularities of each department, but in all of them the progressive advancement from undergraduate to postgraduate studies, as well as into the position of teaching at universities, is noticeable. We conclude that the professors participating in our research demonstrate being previously inculcated by their families and schools with a recognition of education, presenting characteristics of a meritocratic ideology camouflaged in the association of performance with individual aspects, as well as having learned to adapt at university through the use of practical sense. With few questions and discussions about Affirmative Action, participants believe that the contents of subjects with high dropout and retention rates are highly complex and universal, corroborating symbolic violence and the maintenance of the university’s selective function. Such findings confirm our hypothesis that the beliefs of university professors are formed through an articulation between their positions in the field, which receives influences from the State as holder of the symbolic monopoly, and their habitus, formed throughout their socializing experiences.