Mundialização do capital e expansão do ensino jurídico no Brasil : um estudo em Uberlândia

Abstract

Starting from the understanding of the crisis and of the restructuring of the capitalist State, this study examines the impacts of such changes on the establishment of the higher education public policies announced by the Brazilian State and, particularly, on the management policies for Law Schools in the last two decades. Based on categories that explore the contradictions in this process, the study presents the hypothesis that the proposal of a humanist and ethical legal education put forward in the provisions which regulate the establishment, license, recognition and validation of Law Courses in Brazil does not stand up before the demands posed by the globalization of capital. Among other demands, we highlight the manipulation of knowledge in order to favor market interests, so that the crisis of legal education referred to by the political actors dealing with higher legal education must be understood taking into account the capital crisis itself. This must, therefore, go beyond the understanding announced by managers, class entities and faculty associations. Going from the specific to the general, this work questions the guidelines, decrees and assessment tools established by the government for the sector in this perspective, besides the pedagogical projects of the targeted courses. This has allowed us to support the thesis according to which the policies announced and the argument of the actors involved in this process are contradictory in face of the existing material conditions in Law Courses in the city of Uberlandia. As an educational center, the city gathers more than five thousand students in eight Law schools. This study, with its research field limited to the local reality, has shown that the relations among the State, science and human qualification affect the legal education provided in Uberlandia.