TRAJECTORY OF STUDENTS AT A PUBLIC UNIVERSITY: BETWEEN FAMILY PATH-PROJECTS AND INDIVIDUATION

Abstract

Brazilian public universities, especially in the last decade, are in the process of diversifying their student population, which requires research about who university students are. This article investigates the trajectories of university students from a public institution in the south of the country from the point of view of their social position, the forms of appropriation of family heritage, and their ruptures and adjustments to family project-paths in individuation processes. We analyze how the inheritors report the family and individual mobilization for maintaining or rising their social positions, considering the family paths-projects. Based on a questionnaire answered by 1,463 undergraduate students classified into three groups according to family income, in-depth interviews were carried out with 10 students from the 202 respondents belonging to the group of families with higher income. The analysis identified recurrent and singular situations that relate to distinct forms to perceived challenges faced in the university environment. Furthermore, we identify that the way individuals position themselves and behave is based on their relative social and school privilege position, compared to other segments of lower income classified through the survey. We observe that the interviewees and their families value schooling and that higher education at the public university is part of a naturalized family project-path. On the other hand, they present elements of dissatisfaction with family values and path prescriptions and build individual trajectories through the search for experiences in the university environment, a heterogeneous public space.