Peles negras, universidade branca: a construção da carreira de universitários negros

Abstract

Racism is one of the structural phenomena of Brazilian society, whose effects are felt, mainly, by black individuals, who are constantly submitted to processes of exclusion and marginalization in different areas of their lives, including academically and professionally. Therefore, this study aimed to analyze the influence of racism in the career construction of black college students from a Public Higher Education Institution. For this, adopting the Career Construction Theory as a reference, six studies were developed from interviews, narrative and semi-structured, with 27 self-declared black undergraduates. The first study, based on the results obtained through the narrative interview, was dedicated to analyzing life themes related to racism present throughout the trajectories of the students. The second, like the others, focused on data from semi-structured interviews and analyzed the influence of the family context on the career adaptability of black college students. The third identified the students' adaptation process, during the choice of the undergraduate course and after entering Higher Education, and the impacts of racism on it. The fourth sought to understand how the career adaptability of black undergraduates is constituted in view of their professional expectations and the effects of racism. The fifth identified how the adaptation process of black students takes place in the face of the impacts imposed by racism. The sixth study analyzed the actions to confront racism adopted by black university students throughout the process of construction their careers. The results of the investigations showed that racism impacts the lives of all black college students from childhood, directly or indirectly, regardless of their socioeconomic contexts, requiring them to develop specific ways of constituting adaptability and the development of actions during the adaptation process, aimed especially at coping with its effects. Such impacts, it is worth noting, predate the beginning of the construction of the subjects' careers, and are also present in the trajectory of their families, representing, above all, limitations to schooling and access to socially valued work opportunities. Regarding the effects of racism during the process of building the career of black undergraduates, experiences of inferiority, restricted access to high-competition courses, feeling of not belonging to the academic space and limitations in professional possibilities were reported. In response to such losses, students reported taking different management or confrontation actions, the main ones being: resorting to support from close individuals, such as family members, friends and teachers; to seek support in the belonging groups, formed mainly at the university; denounce the impacts of racism; and outline ways to contribute to the transformation of social reality. These findings indicate the need for Public Institutions of Higher Education to adopt measures that minimize the impacts of racism in the career construction of black students, both in the academic and professional dimensions, and among them, the promotion of collective organizations and extension projects linked to the university community that belongs to this population group.