Affirmative actions at universities have been promoting coexistence between different social and racial/ethnic groups. This scoping review aimed to identify, analyze and synthesize studies on individual, social and racial experiences of the public involved with affirmative action in higher education. We search in the Scielo, VHL - Saude, LILACS, VHL-PSI, EBSCO, APA/PsycNet, MEDLINE/PubMed, ProQuest-ERIC, Web of Science, Scopus, Embase (Elsevier) databases, with the temporal delimitation of the last 10 years, and we selected 46 articles. We used the Iramuteq software, and four thematic classes of experiences were categorized: interpersonal relationships, difficulties and facilitators in the academic environment, representation, and racial identity. Living with diversity broke down barriers and stereotypes about different groups and favored positive transformations in representation and racial and social identification. The speeches of those involved with the policy revealed institutional strategies and possibilities for the permanence and well-being of students.