The Impact of Non-normative Academic Trajectories of Higher Education Students over Their Self-development

The expansion of the higher education system in Brazil, from the 1990s, led to an increase in the number of enrolled students, from lower income backgrounds and other historically excluded groups. In public universities, however, this expansion was focused mainly on the enrollment of students. In general, it was not followed by consistent institutional policies that supported them throughout their academic trajectories. In this article, we start from the understanding that there is an expected trajectory for these students, which reflects a normative conception of human development, structured by values and beliefs related to the objectives of education. However, human trajectories do not coincide with stages and results institutionally expected. From the analysis of the biographic narrative of a black student who filed applications for (re)enrollment in a public university after two compulsory dismissals for non-compliance with academic performance standards, relying on the Dialogical Self-theory, the Educational Self-theory, and the Trajectory theory, we conclude Sara’s pace of achievement of academic results does not correspond to the university normative standard, requiring specific pedagogical support; that the disruptive events experienced throughout her trajectory at university are eventually understood by her as opportunities for self-development; and finally, the study points to the necessity to overcome the exclusive meritocratic logic that preponderates over public universities currently, which omits the dissonance between norms and success conditions, given the socioeconomic and cultural diversity of students.