From a boy from the periphery to coordinator of Insper’s study center

The official launch of Insper’s Racial Studies Nucleus, this Friday (18), gives structure and address to the professional objective of economist Michael França, 34. Son of a welder and a housemaid, raised on the outskirts of Uberaba (MG), França lived in a favela next to USP during his master’s and doctorate at the university.

A standout in studies since graduation, he says he found the direction of his career by using numbers to understand the country’s social problems, the goal of the center he now coordinates.

Created last year, with a professor at Insper and a columnist at Sheet Sergio Firpo and researcher Alysson Portela, the core received two research grants from the Open Society Foundation, an institution that supports different causes around the world. The first funded a nine-month survey into the area of ​​racial inequality in Brazilian politics.

With the second, it was possible to hire six black researchers who, over the next two years, will study racial inequality in education, income and violence, says França, who is also a columnist for Sheet.

Last year, the nucleus developed the Ifer (Index Sheet Equilibrium Racial) and the Ieer (ESG Racial Equity Index). This year, she launched studies related to racial and gender inequality in politics.

Son of a welder and housemaid, economist was the target of racism in childhood

Born on the outskirts of Uberaba (MG), next to two large favelas, the França family’s income was low in childhood. His father was a welder and his mother started working as a maid after he and his brother entered adolescence.

For the economist, the parents’ lack of opportunities and their choices influence the formation of the individual. “I remember climbing a mango tree in the backyard and wondering if one day I would travel somewhere, if I would have better living conditions, because in the place where I lived, there weren’t many expectations.”

França, now a postdoctoral fellow, says that he didn’t like going to school as a child, because the teachers couldn’t teach with the students’ mess. Also, he was the butt of racist jokes.

“In the 90s, until 2000, in several places, many did not want to be called black, it was even a bit offensive. I myself have already declared myself as an indigenous person, since I am black. This agenda has advanced a lot thanks to the black movement and politics of quotas, which forced Brazilian society to debate the theme”, he says.

He says that children at school would hurt themselves when rubbing their skin to try to lighten it. “A friend even injured himself using chemicals.”

Evangelical church gave structure, says researcher, best undergraduate student

Attending an evangelical church as a child had a huge impact on his upbringing. For France, we would be a much more violent society without the church. “I read the Bible a few times. In church I learned the power of oratory as a means of resolving conflicts, it helped me to become an extremely peaceful person”, he says, who today does not attend any specific church.

Until the first year of high school, França says she had never heard of college entrance exams, a novelty she learned about through her brother. “At school, the teachers didn’t talk about higher education. The feeling I had was that they didn’t believe that the students would get very far. The students themselves don’t believe in themselves. There were no social models to follow.”

From that day on, the economist got it into his head that, through education, he would rise socially. “Much of my youth was marked by being locked in libraries studying for hours and hours to prepare for the SATs.”

He moved on to economics at Unesp in Araraquara, but sustaining himself financially until the end of the course was another major challenge. His parents could only help him with R$ 350. He lived in a dormitory with 12 other boys. Over time he earned food stamps, rent, and later a college scholarship. This helped him to have greater financial peace of mind and to finish the course as the best student in the class.

“I’ve always done some work to help around the house and buy some materials for school. It was never just studying, but it’s good to point out that many talents are falling by the wayside due to lack of support.”

França lived in a favela during her master’s and doctorate

Despite the study, money was still short. From 2012 to 2020, in order to study for her master’s and doctorate, she lived in the São Remo favela, located close to USP, in the west zone of the city of São Paulo.

In the master’s degree, in which he studied asset pricing in finance, he says that he scared his colleagues with the number of hours he sat studying. “Music was a great companion for me on this journey, which, for the most part, was lonely. YáYá Massemba, sung by Maria Bethânia, still touches me a lot.”

Due to the good academic performance during the master’s degree, he was invited to represent USP in the Econometric Game, a competition that takes place between the best universities in the world, annually, in Amsterdam.

At the end of the master’s degree, França felt little motivated to continue his academic career. So he decided to work as a research assistant at Insper, when a taste for the social area began to emerge. It was there that he began his doctorate at USP, in the area of ​​social inequality, and won a scholarship from Fapesp.

During his doctorate (part of it done as a visiting researcher at Columbia University, in New York), França realized that economists did not communicate what they produced in an accessible way. “My idea is to talk to the general population, not just my peers.”

During the period, he also presented articles in Argentina, Uruguay and India. “When I made all these trips, I remembered that boy who climbed the mango tree. I feel a responsibility to help other people.”