Affirmative action for Brazilian graduate programs: patterns of institutional change

Abstract

Since 2002, some Brazilian public universities have started adopting affirmative action for admission in graduate programs. This article explains how affirmative action changed admission processes in graduate processes based on (a) an analysis of the selection notices of graduate programs offered in public universities published until January 2018, (b) documents from the programs, and (c) semi-structured interviews with coordinators of graduate programs. The results show that, in most programs, admission processes did not change based on affirmative action. Some programs recognized the obstacles faced by vulnerable groups in accessing graduate programs and altered their procedures. Based on the institutional change typology of Mahoney and Thelen (2010), the analysis points out that more profound change is due to endogenous and incremental processes. The main factor contributing to the modification of the admission criteria is the program’s field of knowledge.