Mercantilização do ensino superior brasileiro: as contribuições do Serviço Social ao debate

Abstract

The present thesis aims to analyze the production of knowledge of Social Work on the commodification of higher education in Brazil. Since the mid-2000s, reforms in education policy have configured a process of opening to private capital in the supply of undergraduate and graduate courses, resulting in the growth of private Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) to the detriment of public HEIs. This research is anchored in the historical-critical-dialectical materialism method, of a quantiqualitative nature. The State of the Art was used as a research technique. The research sample included 10 Graduate Programs in Social Work, two from each region of the country, as well as the journal Temporalis, an important vehicle for the diffusion of scientific production in Social Work. For the selection of the materials analyzed, the time frame from 2007 to 2021 and the following descriptors were considered: mercantilization, higher education and Social Service, education policy. Based on these criteria, 19 dissertations, 09 theses, and 05 articles were selected for content analysis. The study also contemplated bibliographic analysis of critical authors who develop reflections about the structural crisis of capital, the configurations of Brazilian education, the mercantilization of higher education, and discussions pertinent to Social Service. Documents were also analyzed, such as: the Law of Directives and Bases of National Education (LDB) of 1996, the Census of Higher Education from 2017 to 2020, the Map of Higher Education in Brazil 2022, the quadrennial report of the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES) of 2017, and the Social Service Area Document of 2019. From the study it was possible to analyze about the socioeconomic and political determinants of the structural crisis of capital, the socio-historical aspects of the Brazilian particularity, the deepening of mercantilization through the expansion of higher education in private Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) (face-to-face or distance learning), the theoretical-critical maturation and the recognition of Social Work as an area of knowledge production. The results of this study revealed: the critical-dialectical historical materialism as a method of investigation object of analysis, the strengthening of the hegemonic strategic social direction and of the ethical-political project of Social Service, the ethical-political commitment to the struggle in defense of the interests of the working class, of the democratic principles and, of the policy of public, free and quality education. Thus, we emphasize the importance of the debate in Social Work, as an area of knowledge production, in the perspective of deepening the scientific investigations about the multiple faces of the mercantilization of higher education in times of structural crisis of capital.