Structural racism in indigenous higher education: reflections from two universities

Abstract

The right to education for Indigenous peoples was established as a public policy based on demands from Indigenous movements and intellectuals who ensured its institutionalization and highlighted the importance of consolidating differentiated educational projects. This demand, established in the National Education Plan (2014), extends to Indigenous access and retention in Brazilian universities. The first experiences emerged before the Quotas Act Law (Law No. 12.711/2012), focusing on intercultural undergraduate programs. This article employs a data triangulation methodology, combining descriptive statistical analysis of microdata from the 2024 Higher Education Census (INEP) and qualitative analysis of two federal universities (UFG and UFOPA), to understand the tensions between the differentiated model of Indigenous education and the non-Indigenous model of compulsory schooling. It was found that only 16.8% of Indigenous entrants were from public institutions, with a concentration in institutions in the Southeast (42.1%). The institutional experience highlighted obstacles such as bureaucracy, adaptation to the urban environment, housing insecurity, and stereotypes that affect academic success. The incorporation of discourses of educational failure and medicalization as justifications for the maintenance of structural racism in higher education was also observed. This phenomenon deserves special attention, given the repositioning of exclusionary discourses and the need to strengthen inclusive educational policies.