Social interaction between affirmative action students and regular students and influences in the social and academic integration at university

Abstract

The adoption of affirmative action access in Brazilian public universities establishes the coexistence between groups from different social backgrounds with direct repercussion in the way these different groups experience the processes of social and academic integration. This study uses Social Network Analysis to explore how students' position in informal social networks is related with academic performance and institutional commitment. Nine hundred and twenty six students from high and low competition courses took part of a survey about their social informal networks and their institutional commitment. The results indicate important differences between groups in high competition degrees: most popular non affirmative action students are those with higher academic performance; their performance is more associated with in group relations; at the same time, non affirmative action students with fewer intergroup relations have shown lower degree of university commitment.