Bass Connections Project Builds Partnerships with Universities in Brazil
While others are preparing for the 2016 Summer Olympics, a Duke research team is working in Rio de Janeiro to study the effects of the Brazilian government’s expansion of the university system.
As part of Duke’s Global Brazil Lab, students and faculty are working alongside Brazilian scholars and students at the Multidisciplinary Institute of the Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro. The team—which formed from a Bass Connections program—is residing and working in Baixada, a lower-income region in the city’s lowlands, to assess how changes to higher education will impact social mobility in the country.
“It’s an immersion experience, and we are in a region that is very different from any place that people would intentionally stop in,” professor of history John French said. “The whole project is being conducted in Portuguese, and the students have a wonderful attitude about it.”
French and Christine Folch, associate professor of cultural anthropology, are leading the project and serve as two of the three co-directors of the Global Brazil Lab in the Franklin Humanities Institute.
One of the Global Brazil Lab’s goals is to facilitate intercultural exchange between Duke students and their Brazilian colleagues. The Bass Connections team is working with approximately two dozen Brazilian students to acquire data, develop reports and discuss issues in the Brazilian cultural, social, environmental and political landscape.
“We are aiming to create strategic partnerships between Duke and Brazilian universities, U.S. scholars and Brazilian scholars and U.S. students and Brazilian students,” French said.
Read the full article by Ajay Desai in The Chronicle.
Learn More
- Read about the Bass Connections project team, The Cost of Opportunity? Higher Education in the Baixada Fluminense.
- Explore Bass Connections in Education & Human Development.
- Find out how to get involved in Bass Connections.