Who are the Blacks? The Question of Racial Classification in Brazilian Affirmative Action Policies in Higher EducationPosted in Articles, Brazil, Caribbean/Latin America, Media Archive, Politics/Public Policy, Social Science on 2011-07-23 23:37Z by Steven |
Cahiers de la Recherche sur l’Éducation et les Savoirs
Number 7 (October 2008)
18 pages
Luisa Farah Schwartzman, Assistant Professor in Sociology
University of Toronto
Debates about racial classification and its agreement with the uses of “race” and “color” in everyday life have been central to the discussion about affirmative action in Brazil. Using quantitative and qualitative data regarding the relationship between socio-economic status and racial identification in Brazilian universities, this paper investigates how particular kinds of policies may have different impact in terms of which particular “kinds” of individuals are benefited. I argue that both the labels that are used and the socio-economic limits that are imposed may have significant and not always intuitive consequences for which individuals are admitted, and for how contestable their eligibility will become. The label negro, when used as the sole criterion for admissions, may be too restrictive and exclude “deserving” non-whites from these policies. On the other hand, because potential non-whites from higher socio-economic classes are more likely to come from “multi-racial” families, the absence of a socio-economic criterion may lead to a substantial number of candidates who may feel that they can lay claims to a wide range of racial labels, not all of which may be acceptable to policy designers and scrutinizers concerned with restricting eligibility for quotas to “deserving” candidates.
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