Rev. Educação e Fronteiras, Dourados, v. 12, n. esp. 2, e023024, 2023. e-ISSN:2237-258X
DOI: https://doi.org/10.30612/eduf.v12iesp.2.17400 5
by both the State and private initiatives. They are considered emergency and transitory
measures, and their discontinuation is conditioned on proving that the situations that gave rise
to them have been overcome (SANTOS et al., 2021).
Thus, in addition to the ideal of achieving equal opportunities, one of the
objectives sought with affirmative action policies would be to induce
transformations of cultural, pedagogical, and psychological order, capable of
removing from the collective imagination the idea of supremacy and
subordination of one race to another, or of men to women. The driving force
behind these transformations would be the exemplary nature of certain types
of affirmative action, whose effectiveness as agents of social change few have
dared to deny. On the one hand, these policies would symbolize the official
recognition of the persistence and permanence of discriminatory practices and
the need for their elimination. On the other hand, they would also aim to
achieve objectives of a cultural nature since they inevitably result in the
trivialization and banalization, in the public sphere, of the need and usefulness
of public policies aimed at implementing pluralism and diversity (GOMES,
2007, p. 57, our translation).
The studies conducted by Moehlecke (2004, p. 759) also confirm this aspect, showing
that affirmative action programs in Brazil began to take effect in some Brazilian universities,
driven by social movements demanding greater equality and equitable mechanisms in accessing
goods and services.
The concept of affirmative action adopted in this research is that of "[...] public policies
aimed at achieving the constitutional principle of material equality and neutralizing the effects
of racial, gender, age, national origin, physical appearance, and socioeconomic discrimination"
(GOMES, 2001, p. 6-7, our translation).
Affirmative action policies can be understood as compensatory policies based on the
principle of equality and grounded in providing unequal treatment to those who are unequal,
focusing on specific groups, such as race or gender (MOEHLECKE, 2000, p. 9). Affirmative
ideologies are considered public policies aimed at repairing and correcting the consequences of
past racial, gender, and disability discrimination to promote equality for all citizens. Feres
Júnior et al. (2018, p. 13, our translation) states that,
Therefore, it seems reasonable to consider affirmative action any public or
private program that aims to provide notable resources or rights to members
of a disadvantaged social group with a view to a collective good. Ethnicity,
race, class, occupation, gender, religion, and caste are the most common
categories in such policies. The resources and opportunities distributed by
affirmative action include political participation, access to education,
admission to higher education institutions, health services, employment,
business opportunities, material goods, social safety nets, and cultural and
historical recognition.