random observations

Today I wanted to talk about a couple of our experiences on this trip that I haven’t gotten a chance to write about, yet feel as though they relate to my project in one way or another – they are from different points during our trip so far so have no chronological order to them. I want to start with a discussion that I had with Julia in the car between interviews a couple of days ago. Julia told me that there are 27 states in Brazil, each with their own federal and state universities. In many of these states, there are private schools that are actually better and more prestigious than their public school counterparts. Julia also told me that public universities seem to be losing funding as of late (must be a global phenomenon!) and that this is mostly a very scary thought. I asked her why the public universities get the best faculty, she said that it is all about prestige, and that private universities actually typically pay the most money. She also told me that it is her belief that it is quite possible that within 20 to 30 years private schools will be equal to or better than public schools. I asked if this could be a good thing because it means that the quality of education is spread out and therefore more accessible to everyone, but she said that she fears that once the public school foundation and leadership goes away, it is possible that education can actually drop for everyone.

Another experience I haven’t written about yet, but feel as though I learned a lot from, is the visit to the organization that discussed the afro-Brazilian religions and Tajenos. These Tajenos actually have community schools in Salvador, and at least one of them is considered prestigious (even if it is just an elementary school). This is important to me because it is one of the first instances where there is a direct link between afro-Brazilian involvement in education, and a simultaneous coexistence of prestige. They also mentioned how some are working on how black culture can influence education, which tries to emphasize the influence that afro-Brazilian culture has on the rest of society. There are even some laws that mandate the education of afro-Brazilian culture, but not a whole lot of implementation of these laws.

This started to get me thinking about actual solutions to some of the problems that my project proposes, which is nice, because up until now, much of what I have been doing is just finding problems and analyzing them. If my project is about working on the role that perceptions of diversity and prestige play in access to education, then the follow up would be to consider ways in which we might influence perceptions of prestige and diversity in order to increase access. In the US my goal is to do influence perceptions of prestige by changing the criteria with which US News and World Report decides to rank schools, and asking them to take diversity into consideration. In Brazil, one thing that they are doing is mandating the education of afro-Brazilian culture and its influence. Growing up in public schools in the US, I know that our exposure to minority culture and its influence is very limited and superficial. Increasing the influence of these cultures in our public educational system is something that I know has been worked on in the past, but something that I have a renowned respect for now that I understand how it can increase access to higher education as well.