Discriminação por elevada titulação acadêmica de docentes da educação superior privada de Salvador

Abstract

The focus of the present study was the dismissal of faculty members holding masters and doctoral degrees, who had been previously hired to fulfill the regulatory requirements to accredit and reaccredit private universities in Salvador with the Ministry of Education or to obtain authorization, recognition and respective renovations of undergraduate courses at that Ministry, soon after the conclusion of the approval procedures. This phenomenon of dismissing professors with high academic degrees in the private universities of Salvador was analyzed from data collected during investigations made by the Fifth District Labor Relations Board between 2006 and 2013. The theoretical framework was based on the Brazilian literature on neoliberalism, contemporary capitalism, the commercialization of private university education, the instability of labor relations in general, and of higher education personnel in particular, and constitutional law, labor law and legislation governing higher education. The methodology used was exploratory, qualitative and descriptive, with the use of documental and content analysis techniques. The subjects investigated in the field research phase consisted of one union leader, one assessor from the Ministry of Education, and three university coordinators and four university professors, all from the private sector, making a total of nine participants. The instruments used for data collection consisted of free interviews and exploratory, bibliographic and documental research, as well as semi-structured interviews. Analysis of the data collected during the study period showed that the dismissals investigated in this study constitute one more element in the process of destabilizing the work of university professors in the private sector in Salvador, which is already affecting even those with the highest academic degrees. Furthermore, these dismissals also fit the juridical concept of discrimination.