Although the expansion of affirmative actions has darkened higher education classrooms and brought the profile of students closer to that of the majority of the population, the international relations course, inaugurated in the country five decades ago, continues to be described by the academic community as elite and little diverse .
X-rays of the eight main courses offered in Brazil, according to the classification of the RUF (University Ranking Folha), reflects the perception. From 2017 to 2021, blacks and browns accounted for 31% of freshmen who self-declare their race, while whites filled 67% of the vacancies, shows a survey carried out by the report.
When he entered the Institute of International Relations (IRI) at USP in 2019, the best-ranked Brazilian university in the area, Pedro Vitor Rodrigues da Silva, 20, came across this scenario. “My class turned out to be a little more diverse—but not that much.”
Born and raised in the neighborhood of Americanópolis, in the south of São Paulo, the student is part of the fourth class that joined the institute with the availability of quotas. Affirmative actions started to be adopted via Sisu (Unified Selection System) in the course in 2016, and in 2019 Fuvest —the university entrance exam Pedro entered— reserved places for blacks, browns and indigenous people.
Over the past five years, with quotas already in place, the institution’s international relations course had an average of 28.8% of black entrants. Whites continue to form the robust majority of 65.3%. “Talking to colleagues from previous years, it was possible to get a sense of what USP was like before the quotas. But it is still a very white place”, says Pedro.
The average number of black students in the USP course puts it behind other universities, especially federal institutions. Even so, this group, which represents 54.2% of the Brazilian population, according to the most recent data from the PNAD (National Sample Survey by Household), rarely represents more than half of the freshmen in IR.
The University of BrasÃlia (UnB) is the one that stands out the most. Of the entire period, only in 2021 (a year in which there were newcomers only in the first semester) did the percentage break the rule: blacks represented 24.1%. In other years, the lowest rate recorded was 50.5% in 2017, and the highest, 63.1%, in 2018.
At the other end is the Pontifical Catholic University of Minas Gerais (PUC-Minas), which in the period analyzed never had more than 30% of admissions self-declared black. The institution, which does not have a quota system, joined the Prouni (University for All Program) in 2005.
The State University of São Paulo (Unesp), which has a quota system and was a pioneer in affirmative action in the state, still has low representation, with an average of 25.3% of blacks, just ahead of PUC-Minas (24.9 %).
Pedro, who wants to pursue a career as a diplomat and dreams of occupying a post in the Middle East, declares himself to be brown. “I will never be privileged as a white person, but at the same time, I will not suffer the same traumas that a person with darker pigmentation will suffer.”
When he enrolled at USP, he worked at Emae (Metropolitan Water and Energy Company), in a demanding routine: he left home at 7 am for work and returned at 1 am from college. To be able to follow his studies, however, he had to leave work shortly afterwards.
Although he felt some disadvantages in relation to his colleagues, Pedro started the course with a differential that, for many, is a barrier: the knowledge of other languages. The student’s brother is an English teacher, so he got a scholarship to a language school.
Professor of international relations at the Federal University of ABC (UFABC), Flavio Thales Ribeiro Francisco cites English and the lack of regular and free initiatives for language teaching at universities as two key factors to alienate black students from middle-income families. low income of course. “But there are also other bottlenecks that precede the entrance exam”, he says.
The first would be misinformation around the area, which would even compromise the enrollment of university students to fill vacancies reserved by the quotas. “Few students are aware of the meaning of international relations and what professions a person taking this course can pursue.”
Another problem is the infrequency with which racial issues are discussed in the traditional course schedule. “Since there is a state-centric approach, on presidential diplomacy and the role of diplomats, issues of race relations end up marginalized,” he says.
The professor of postgraduate studies in IR at the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC) Karine de Souza Silva agrees. For her, part of the problem resides in the mostly white composition of the teaching staff in the area. “We are few and far between. Here, I am the only black teacher”, she says. “We have white courses focused not only on the composition of teachers, but also on the authors and authors of the teaching plan.”
According to the professor, the origins of the discipline are also a bottleneck in attracting black students. The international relations course emerged in the 1970s, in BrasÃlia, and spread to the Rio-São Paulo axis. “Browns, blacks and indigenous peoples in the North and Northeast find it difficult to enter courses in other regions”, says Silva.
The approximately 150 courses currently active in Brazil are unevenly distributed throughout the territory, with 55% in the Southeast region and 21% in the South region. While São Paulo has 47 courses available, states such as Ceará and Rio Grande do Norte have only one , according to researcher Marrielle Maia, a professor at the Federal University of Uberlândia (UFU).
After overcoming the barriers of the course itself, those who wish to pursue a career as a diplomat still face one of the most prestigious and competitive competitions in the country, that of the Rio Branco Institute.
Itamaraty does not have the number of blacks in the diplomatic career, as self-declaration is not required when joining the agency. Since 2014, however, in the six competitions held —the one in 2020 was postponed due to the pandemic—, 37 black candidates were approved, of which 32 were in quota places and 5 in those aimed at broad competition.
The quota law, a federal mechanism, was implemented in the competition from 2015 and followed to the letter in all editions, that is, with 20% of the vacancies occupied by blacks who compete for affirmative actions.
Although it is not possible to say whether the numbers reflect the true racial composition of the newcomers, the percentage is still far from the reality of the Brazilian population.
The prestige of the competition also permeates the glamor of the area, points out Silva. “One of the barriers is to think that the area always requires a person to be polyglot”, he says, referring to the requirement of knowledge of French, English and Spanish for the tests. “But when it comes to Itamaraty, we are talking about public policy, something that should not be glamorized.”
This year, the English exam for the Rio Branco competition was widely questioned due to the lack of transparency regarding the correction criteria — which even generated a representation of Education and Citizenship of Afro-descendants and Needy (Educafro) at the Federal Public Ministry .
In the complaint against the brokerage firm of the American Institute of Development (IADES), which applies the test, the group points out that, in the result of the second phase, 137 candidates, out of a total of 255, were eliminated. The piece also indicates that candidates who disputed the places reserved by the quotas were more harmed than those with broad competition, with the elimination of 79% of competitors, compared to an overall average of 53.7%.
The lawsuit is still pending at the Federal District Attorney’s Office, but this year’s appointments have already begun. If the Court understands that there was any irregularity in the application of the exam, more candidates can be nominated, but there is no defined deadline for a conclusion.
On the other hand, since 2002 Itamaraty has offered a Vocation Award for Diplomacy for black people, in which those selected receive a fee based on a competition in public notice to dedicate themselves to their studies. In the 19 years of the program, 20 beneficiaries of the scholarship have joined Rio Branco.
Although walking at a slow pace, the presence of blacks in international relations has helped to combat stereotypes linked to quotas. A report prepared by Professor Felipe Loureiro, president of the IRI-USP Graduation Committee, shows that the performance of quota students is equivalent to that of those who enter due to broad competition.
The survey also concludes that the average number of students benefiting from affirmative action is similar to that of non-quota students and that the dropout rate for the first group is lower than for the second.
Despite the unequal scenario, Francisco, from UFABC, sees advances in the area, such as the formation of a first generation of black researchers to benefit from quotas. “This makes it possible for students like me, who are not middle-class graduates, to be able to work more in the field of research.”
Silva, from UFSC, identifies a movement towards the decolonization of educational institutions, driven by black and indigenous activism, which has gained traction and has changed the reality of courses such as IR. “We’ve reached a point of no return. Black people are also looking for racial literacy, and today certain things we saw in the past are no longer going to pass.”
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