A construção do público pelo público no universo das políticas públicas de assistência estudantil: o caso da Câmara de Assistência Estudantil (CAE) na Universidade Federal do Vale do São Francisco (UNIVASF)

Abstract

The present work aims to understand the experience of Student Assistance Camera of UNIVASF (CAE), collegiate, deliberative instance within the framework of public policies for student assistance (PPAE), and the learning processes connected to them. It is based on a central, social approach of public policies, understanding them as multi-actor, complex action for treatment of a problem of public relevance, from instruments co activated by different social actors beyond the State. In this sense, the perception of this work is that the CAE is constituted as a public policy instrument whose quality or public attribute is constructed by the own public of actions of the instrument. To discuss the nature of what is public, as well as its borders, based on the concept of learning, by understanding that learning is the driving force of dynamics processing problems and solution alternatives in a society that still seeks to democratize in their further day-to-day social practices more. The pragmatic perspective adopted in this study points to the recognition that learning is not merely a cognitive issue, which happens in the mind of individuals, instead, it has a social dimension, because it is the result of the interactions that individuals establish among themselves around something that is important and necessary. To do so, it requires access and opportunity for participation, therefore, the structure, power relations and conditions of legitimacy define the learning opportunities. The analytical matrix built in this study to understand the experience of CAE stems from the crossroads of analytical references chosen, involving the reconstruction of the trajectory of the PPAEs, identifying the ebbs and flows that lead to definition of the problem of permanence in Brazilian college education and construction of solution alternatives, also questioning power relations in the constitution and implementation of the CAE as a tool of public policy with particular attention to learning processes. Resulting in the understanding of what organizational experiments in the framework of HIPC based on collective construction and its continuing questioning from the nexus with the existing educational and other policies with the social movements of education can generate knowledge and new organizational practices closer to the real public demands and more aligned to the principles of social justice and democratization of college education.