UT College of Liberal Arts

Earlier this year, the United States Supreme Court voted to uphold affirmative action in The University of Texas at Austin’s admissions policies, allowing all universities to continue race-conscious programs to promote a more diverse student body. But UT Austin sociologist Leticia Marteleto says it’s about much more than diversity; it’s about closing racial achievement gaps and affording educational opportunities to those who, historically, have been disadvantaged. “Race and ethnic stratification exists, and it’s alive and kicking both in Brazil and in the United States,” Marteleto says. “As people become more aware of it and more minorities enter campuses across these multiracial countries, we can begin to make a difference for these populations.” As a researcher in the university’s Population Research Center, Marteleto began looking into educational inequalities by social origin and race in Brazil, home of the largest race-based affirmative action program in the world. Though it started timidly in the early 2000s in Rio de Janeiro and Bahia state universities, Brazil’s affirmative action programs blossomed through a national quota system, expanding access to public universities and offering incentives to institutions with policies aimed at social inclusion, Marteleto says. But while these efforts may have lessened non-white disadvantages in college entrance, the strong focus on higher education may have limited effects, she warns. Examining the outcomes of these policies, she says, could inform educational policy making in the U.S. In a study published in the journal Research in Social Stratification and Mobility in October, Marteleto and her colleagues Murilllo Marschner, from Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, and Flávio Carvalhaes, from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, used nationally representative data of 1,950 respondents, ages 21-29, to investigate changes in educational inequality by social origin and race in Brazil, looking at three educational transitions: high school entrance, high school completion and college entrance. Respondents were separated into two cohorts: those of age to enter high school between 1998 and 2002, when affirmative action policies were first being implemented; and those of age to begin high school between 2003 and 2006, when policies were rapidly expanding and encouraged by the government. According to the study, educational disadvantages associated with social origin, measured by parents’ education level, remain evident throughout each transition. In both cohorts, those whose parents completed high school were more likely to enter high school than their peers whose parents did not complete high school: 92 to 62 percent, respectively, in the older cohort; and 94 to 66 percent, respectively, in the younger cohort. These probabilities drop significantly when predicting high school completion. “It appears that students with parents with low or average education levels are becoming more equal, while students with parents with at least some college have gained a further advantage,” Marteleto says. While there was little to no racial differences in the likelihood of entering high school in either cohort, Marteleto and her colleagues noted a widening racial gap in high school completion among the younger cohort, with whites having a 57 percent probability of completing high school while non-whites face a 48 percent probability. Similarly, respondents whose parents completed high school were more likely to enter college than their peers whose parents did not complete high school: 40 to 7 percent, respectively, in the older cohort; and 35 to 66 percent, respectively, in the younger cohort. However, racial disparities in college access declined significantly between cohorts, with 17 percent of whites and 10 percent non-whites entering college in the older cohort, compared to 13 percent and 12 percent, respectively, in the younger cohort. “Combined, these two findings show that while younger cohorts enjoy more egalitarian educational opportunities relative to older cohorts, important bottlenecks linked to persistent inequalities based on both social origin and race remain, particularly for the completion of secondary schooling,” Marteleto says. Only a small proportion of non-white students finish high school in Brazil so focusing affirmative action policies on college entrance limits the potential for reaching a broader proportion. “This suggests that the focus on college-only policies may have limited effects on restructuring educational opportunities in the highest levels of the Brazilian educational system.”

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