A moradia estudantil no processo de afiliação e integração à vida acadêmica

Abstract

Given the expansion of higher education, resulting, in part, from the implementation of public policies to expand access, discussions about the democratization and permanence of students gained prominence. These policies contributed to the diversification of the new public in higher education and emphasized the importance of the role of the state in the development of assistance policies. In the field of Sociology of Education, the production of trajectories of school longevity in popular areas has highlighted the role of agents and contexts of primary socialization, such as family and school, the performance of third parties and also student assistance programs, as important factors for the constitution of these pathways. Considering the different spheres of socialization in which young people are inserted, this research aimed to analyze if and how the type of student housing offered at the Federal Universities of Minas Gerais, Viçosa and Ouro Preto has influenced the process of “integration” (TINTO, 1975) and “affiliation” (COULON, 2008) of students to academic life. The analytical focus contemplates organizational and social aspects of students' relationship with student housing and can be subdivided into two parts. The first one focuses on the analysis of the university housing policy as a component of the National Student Assistance Program, covering aspects of the organization and management that universities undertake to offer housing. In the second part, the socialization practices resulting from the collective living in the student housing of the Federal University of Ouro Preto were prioritized due to the uniqueness of its program in relation to the other federal universities in the country. The students’ perceptions about the effects of housing on their stay in the institution are highlighted. The research is qualitative and is characterized as a case study, having been adopted as the main methodological resources the application of a questionnaire and a semi-structured interview, based on the methodological theoretical model of “sociology on an individual scale” developed by Lahire (2004). The data show that the different forms of residence, taken as spaces of coexistence and exchange, can exert different influences on academic pathways. The study of the biographies constructed in the present thesis has the ability to reveal the existence of factors of other order than those related to social origins. We highlight the socializing effect of the context in which students are inserted and the relationships established within the student housing as mobilizing, to a greater or lesser extent, their integration and affiliation with higher education.