Affirmative action in Brazil: global lessons on racial justice and the fight to reduce social inequality

Public policies intended to promote educational equity are common around the world. This paper examines Brazil's experience with affirmative action (AA) in higher education, which holds lessons for other countries. In what follows, we describe the social and historical context, investigate trends in racial inequality, and review the literature on AA. To summarize, nationally representative data show that racial inequality in education has decreased since the early 2000s. AA emerged in the period after the transition from dictatorship to democracy had allowed political mobilization to flourish. AA dramatically increased the enrolment of disadvantaged groups in college. Students admitted through AA typically had academic outcomes comparable to other students, and some, though not all, enjoyed sizeable labour market gains. AA also influenced patterns of racial identification. However, the evidence on pre-college human capital is mixed.