A Decade of Affirmative Action in Brazil: Lessons for the Global Debate

Abstract

Just over a decade after the first universities in Brazil adopted quotas for Afro-Brazilians and other disadvantaged groups, the country has implemented the most sweeping affirmative action policies in the Western Hemisphere. The surrounding controversy has inspired a large number of studies, which seek to evaluate the impact and scope of the policies, in terms of racial and social inequality, as well as to gauge perceptions within the public at large. This paper reviews some of the most significant findings of those studies, which have important implications for the global debate over affirmative action in higher education.

Citation

Lloyd, M. (2015), "A Decade of Affirmative Action in Brazil: Lessons for the Global Debate", Mitigating Inequality: Higher Education Research, Policy, and Practice in an Era of Massification and Stratification (Advances in Education in Diverse Communities, Vol. 11), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 169-189. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1479-358X20150000011011