Resumen

PEIXOTO, Adriano de Lemos Alves; RIBEIRO, Elisa Maria Barbosa de Amorim; BASTOS, Antônio Virgilio Bittencourt  y  RAMALHO, Maria Cecilia Koehne. Affirmative policies and academic performance in a brazilian public university. Avaliação [online]. 2016, vol.21, n.2, pp.569-591. ISSN 1982-5765.  https://doi.org/10.1590/S1414-40772016000200013.

An important and ongoing debate among academia and policy makers is about how good is the academic performance of students targeted by affirmative policies when compared to their fellows at the university? This study seeks to compare academic performance of two groups of students, beneficiary and non-beneficiary of affirmative action policy at Universidade Federal da Bahia (UFBA), a Brazilian public university. The sample was composed with all students currently enrolled at the university (N=26.175). The results suggest that non-beneficiary students have a higher academic performance when compared to beneficiaries. The difference between this two groups is 6,81% (F=348,114, p<.000). When we split the group of students according to their under graduation course the differences get clearer with beneficiaries outperforming in arts and social sciences while non-beneficiaries outperform in health and engineering. The results suggest that this is a complex and multidetermined phenomenon where a lack of basic knowledge in math combined with problems arising from poor schooling explains differences in academic performance. Beyond ideological disputes it is necessary to intervene in this situation in order to guarantee an effective social inclusion and a good and solid education to all.

Palabras clave : Affirmative action; Academic performance; Social/racial quota; Assessment.

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