Using recent data, this study examines the affirmative action programme of the Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (UERJ), the first Brazilian university to implement admissions quotas. The article analyses admissions records and finds that both the ratio of applications per place and minimum admission scores are considerably lower among quota students; scores in the admissions test are associated principally with socio-economic factors rather than racial ones; preparatory courses for the university's admissions tests do not appear to be a substitute for the quota system in terms of improving access; few quota applicants would be admitted in the absence of the system; and the applicants who displace others come from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds. The article concludes that it is necessary to improve the quality of basic education in Brazil in order to enable disadvantaged applicants to compete.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the ethos of interculturalidad in Mexico's recently founded universidades interculturales. On the basis of documentation and interviews with faculty in five universities, institutionalisation of intercultural higher education within the state sector can be seen to have created a space in which the politics of recognition meet the radical ideas of educators in the tradition of constructivism and educación popular. Intercultural higher education does not select students on the basis of race, but the location of the campuses and the content of courses are designed to attract indigenous students. The introduction of field research early in the undergraduate course should transform the relationship between students and their communities of origin, and prepare them for leadership roles. The article concludes with a critique of what it calls ‘hard’ multiculturalism.

This ethnographic article discusses how race emerges between discourses of class and space at the University of the State of Rio de Janeiro. Following a legal decision, this academic institution was required to implement racial quotas to combat social exclusion and raise the number of ‘black’ students in public higher education. A crucial question is whether such racially based policies help redress social inequalities, or whether they actually increase discrimination by reifying ‘racial’ differences in Brazil. I argue that the social diversity promoted by quotas at the university stresses certain urban tensions and unequal dynamics that come to be reflected within the university. However, it also reveals novel and positive paths by which policies can negotiate these contrasts.

This paper investigates how students at the State University of Rio de Janeiro(UERJ), one of the first Brazilian universities to adopt race-based quotas foradmissions, interpret racial categories used as eligibility criteria.Considering the perspectives of students is important to understand the workingsof affirmative action policies because UERJ's quotas require applicants toclassify themselves. Students' interpretations of those categories often divergefrom the interpretations intended by people who shaped the policy. Students'perspectives are formed by everyday experiences with categorisation and by theirself-assessment as legitimate beneficiaries of quotas. In contrast, the policieswere designed according to a new racial project, where blackconsciousness-raising and statistics played an important role.