Resonating voices: the curriculum experienced by affirmative action black women students in higher education

Abstract

Affirmative Action Policies (AAPs) have shown positive effects in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), where black students constitute the majority of the student body. Despite this positive effect, black women have been intersectionally affected by violence over time (Kilomba, 2019). Understanding AAPs as a cultural policy, we inquire about the configuring condition of the presence of affirmative action black women students in higher education, problematizing cultural processes generated in the curriculum of two undergraduate courses, Pedagogy and Law, at a public university. The objective that permeates both research studies is to give visibility to processes of signification of identities, more specifically of affirmative action   black women quota students, making their voices resonate from the curriculum they experience. The analysis occurs under the theoretical-methodological orientation of the policy cycle (Ball et al., 1992; Ball et al., 2016), articulated with Evaristo's theory of "escrevivência" (2017), through semi-structured interviews with afirmativa action black women students from both courses. We explore the "escrevivência" of subjective movements of insurgency of two affirmative action black women students, who reposition themselves as black women in this HEI, with cultural practices that reverberate collectively in actions that signify and resignify their presence in the curriculum.