Mercantilização da educação superior e a expansão dos cursos de graduação em Serviço Social em Alagoas no período de 2016-2022

Abstract

This dissertation investigated the expansion of undergraduate courses in social service in the state of Alagoas, Brazil, amidst the intensification commodification process of in Brazil, in higher education between 2016 and 2022. The research sought to achieve the following objectives: understanding the meanings of higher education in capitalism; reflect on the privatization and commercialization movement of social service courses in Alagoas and identify the characteristics of the training profile defined by private HEIs operating in the year 2023 in this state of the federation. We defined a methodological pathway for an exploratory study using bibliographical and document review and analysis as technical procedures to answer the research objectives. In Brazil, the commodification of social service education increased in the 2000s with the expansion of online courses. In Alagoas, since 2016, as a reflex of the intense commodification process, the number of social assistants registered in the Conselho Regional de Serviço Social de Alagoas (CRESS-AL) who graduated in private higher education institutions (HEI) and online surpassed those from in-person courses and public HEI. Furthermore, that year witnessed the social, political, economic, and cultural unfoldings of a coup d'état undertaken by powerful and dominant groups and its reflections on education. It is in this situation that the expansion of social service courses in Alagoas is located in the period proposed for analysis, bringing changes in the profile of the courses and their professionals. In the structure of the dissertation, we first contextualize education development, highlighting its connection with work and the perspective of education as a capitalist good, explaining the three predominant moments in Brazil's privatization process of higher education. Subsequently, the results of documentary research and bibliographical research on the process expansion of social service courses in Alagoas and their particularities, with emphasis in the between 2016, 2022, context of the intensification of higher education commodification of in Brazil.