Indigenous university – my world, your world, our world

– MY WORLD, YOUR WORLD, OUR WORLD

Abstract

The presence of indigenous people in higher education dates back to the beginning of the 1990s in Brazil and can still be considered a major challenge to be faced. The general objective of this research was to raise problems and resources for coping in the four sectors of the adaptation of an indigenous student Akwē Xerente, from the Federal University of Tocantins (FUT). A semi-structured interview was carried out, based on Ryad Simon's Adaptation Theory, organized according to four sectors of adaptation: Affective-Relational, Productivity, Socio-Cultural and Organic. The interview was audio recorded and transcribed. Then it was prepared according to established criteria for the application of the IRAMUTEQ software. From the Descending Hierarchical Analysis (DHA), performed by IRAMUTEQ to the textual corpus, two large classes were identified: the first, called “Indigenous Culture” and the second, “University Culture”. The second, in turn, subdivided into “Problems”: “Displacement” and “Distance from the family” and “Answers”: “Seek support” and “Seek to learn”. The results indicate that there is a broad context from which the indigenous student's experience at the university takes place: the cultural one. It is this perspective that makes it possible to understand how the indigenous are inserted in the university.