This event will present and discuss the initial findings and insights of the Unequal Expansion of higher education systems and the institutional models in Latin America project. This project aims to analyze Higher Education (HE) policies in Latin America, establishing the main characteristics of the institutional models in Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Peru, and Uruguay.  It proposes to characterize the expansion of HE in these countries indicating their institutional variability, in the types of degrees offered, the careers or knowledge valued, the processes of reproduction of the elites, and the patterns of access, completion, and outcomes of graduates. Although the expansion of higher education is a general phenomenon, in recent decades, each national system has undertaken in its own way - and with different timings - the increase in the number of its institutions, courses, and students in HE. In this study, the research question is to understand how the processes of ES expansion that have occurred in the region have faced two challenges: on the one hand, to include groups of young people traditionally excluded - by inequalities of gender, social class, ethnicity, color, etc. from higher education in their respective countries; and, on the other, to reproduce and/or renew their elites in the context of expanded and supposedly more democratic higher education systems. Our hypothesis is that the institutional models of the SES express social forces and collective agency, configuring differentiated levels of openness of the systems. We aim to institutionalize the articulation of research networks on SE in Latin America and to contribute to the process of training public and private managers of SE systems. Varied methodologies will be used including bibliographical, documentary, and public database research, as well as interviews with selected participants. The results will be the production of analyses of the different policies of expansion of the systems considered, the articulation of a network of researchers interested in policies on higher education in Latin America, and the offering of training courses for managers of higher education systems in Latin America.

Speaker biographies

Maria-Ligia Barbosa is Associate Professor of Sociology at Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. She holds a bachelor's degree in Social Sciences from Federal University of Minas Gerais (1977) and a doctorate in Sociology from Estate University of Campinas (1993). She has experience in sociology, concentrating on social inequalities, educational policies, higher education, professions. She was Vice-President for Latin America of RC04 (Sociology of Education) – ISA – International Sociological Association (2010/2014 and 2014/2018) and Vice-President of Brazilian Sociological Association SBS (2015/2017). She is Head of the Laboratory for Research into Higher Education (LAPES/PPGSA/UFRJ: http://www.lapesbr.org/)

Cristobal Villalobos Dintrans is a Sociologist and Social Worker from the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, Master in Applied Economics from the Alberto Hurtado University and Georgetown University, and PhD in Social Sciences from University of Chile. Currently, he works as Deputy Director of the Centro de Estudios de Políticas y Prácticas en Educación (CEPPE UC) of the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile. His research topics include educational inequities, citizenship education, social movements for education and elite education. He has published more than 60 articles in indexed journals, as well as more than 30 book chapters. Additionally, he has been co-editor of six academic books.

Julio César Durand is a Certified Public Accountant from the Argentine Catholic University of Buenos Aires (UCA) and a PhD in Educational Sciences from the University of Navarra, specializing in the management of higher education institutions. He is Professor and Director of the Inter-institutional Doctorate of  Higher Education (UA-UAI-UNRN) of the Universidad Austral’ School of Education. He works as Academic Secretary of the Austral University, and previously has been Registrar and Director of International Relations. He has advised higher education institutions. He is a researcher and author of various works on institutional analysis, university rankings and academic management.

Luma Doné Miranda is a postdoctoral associate at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. She holds a Ph.D. and Master's degree in Social Sciences from the Postgraduate Program in Social Sciences at the State University of Rio de Janeiro. Her undergraduate degree is in Political Science from the Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro.

Leonardo Augusto Lopes Rodrigues is a Professor of Sociology at the Federal Institute of Education, Science and Technology of Northern Minas Gerais (IFNMG-Brazil). He received his PhD in Sociology from the University of Rio de Janeiro in 2022 and his MA in Sociology and Anthropology from Federal University of Rio de Janeiro in 2017. Rodrigues is an associate researcher at the Laboratory for Research into Higher Education (Lapes/UFRJ). His research interests include higher education, social stratification, and professional groups.

André Vieira is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Sociology and Methodology of Social Sciences at the Fluminense Federal University and an associate researcher at the Research Group on Structuring Inequalities (Desestrutura/UFF) and the Laboratory for Research into Higher Education (Lapes/UFRJ). His research focuses on educational inequalities, higher education, school-to-work transition and social inequalities. Professor Vieira holds a BA in Sociology from the University of Brasília, MA in Sociology from the Federal University of Minas Gerais and a PhD in Sociology from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.