Assistência Estudantil no Instituto Federal do Acre: contribuições para uma identidade para além dos auxílios financeiros

Abstract

Professional identity is built on the relationships established in workspaces based on individual identities and the feeling of group belongingness. In the process of characterizing an identity, one must consider the identity for oneself, for others, and the relational for themselves. Student Assistance has two conceptions: the universalizing perspective and the selective perspective. In that regard, this research sought to contribute to an identity of Student Assistance beyond financial aid at the Federal Institute of Acre. To do so, three specific objectives were set: a) to discuss the operational possibilities of the Student Assistance technical team for the educational process towards an omnilateral formation of the subject; b) to analyze Student Assistance Policies and the professionals involved in their implementation in the Federal Institutes of Education, Science, and Technology from an educational perspective; c) characterize the identity of Student Assistance at the Federal Institute of Acre (Ifac); and d) develop an educational product that describes the process of characterizing the professional identity of Student Assistance at Ifac. Three articles and an educational product were produced. The first article, entitled “Student Assistance in the educational process: possibilities of action”, was built on bibliographic and documentary research. The second article, “Student Assistance Policies and non-teaching educators in the Federal Institutes of Education, Science and Technology”, used a quantitative-qualitative approach and documental research in the data collection. The third article, “Student Assistance at the Federal Institute of Acre: an identity beyond financial aid”, was drafted through descriptive and exploratory research, applied nature, and a qualitative approach. Action research was adopted as an investigation method.Focus groups and interviews were carried out for data collection, with content analysis applied in the result presentation. The educational product describes the process and presents the results obtained in relation to the identity of the Student Assistance from Ifac. It was verified that many possibilities for action exist in addition to financial aid, such as social and cultural promotion actions; integration between students, school, and families; technical assistance and referrals; health care actions; and psychosocial support, besides the specific ones relating to the post of each professional. Although there is no uniformity in the positions and nomenclature of the sectors that implement this policy in the federal institutes, the forecast for minimum team creation highlights social workers, psychologists, pedagogues, and nutritionists, with the first three predominating as team members in most institutes. However, the number of professionals is insufficient to meet all the demands of the academic community. There are 20 professionals in the Student Assistance sectors on the campuses who carry out follow-up actions, guidance to families, meetings, and conversation circles, monitoring of public notices funded by Student Assistance, among others, for a number of 4394 students. Autonomy, multidisciplinary team, reduced team, dedication and many demands stand out as some identity characteristics of the Student Assistance from Ifac . Of the identities described in the reference used, we found a greater propensity for the identity of the person responsible for internal promotion, despite not fitting in all aspects considered by the author. Furthermore, predominates among professionals at Ifac the perception of educators who contribute to the integral formation process, which is the main characteristic of professional identity. On the other hand, one of the factors that currently hinder the development of actions in a universalizing perspective — i.e., that serve the students in all aspects considering the multidimensionality of the subject and the integral formation — is the high demand and the insufficient number of civil servants in the Student Assistance department to properly address them.