O presente estudo tem por objetivo compreender o consumo de marcas icônicas globais por consumidores de alto poder econômico e baixo capital cultural, em um contexto de país em desenvolvimento. O consumo de marcas icônicas globais auxilia os indivíduos a construir e a sinalizar sua identidade social. O uso e a forma de apropriação de marcas icônicas globais, no contexto brasileiro, atuam como um mecanismo empregado para demarcar uma posição favorável dentro da hierarquia social e gerar distinção entre indivíduos e grupos sociais. Especificamente, buscou-se analisar e compreender os discursos empregados pelas consumidoras para significar, enquadrar, justificar e legitimar o consumo dessas marcas. A pesquisa tem caráter qualitativo e descritivo e foi realizada por meio de entrevistas em profundidade e de observação com vinte e uma mulheres de alto poder econômico e baixo capital cultural. Como resultados desta pesquisa, com base nas distintas narrativas identificadas, categorizou-se os discursos das consumidoras de marcas icônicas globais em quatro grupos. As utilitárias verbalizam que consomem pelos benefícios funcionais, não admitindo consumir o simbolismo. As racionais revelam que alcançam o prazer individual, mas descartam o consumo exibicionista. As ascendentes consomem como fonte de prazer individual e pelo simbolismo do prestígio alcançado por conta da ascensão profissional e social. Por fim, as exibicionistas consomem prioritariamente o valor simbólico do prestígio a fim de sinalizar a diferenciação social perante os demais e pares. Além disso, verificou-se que as consumidoras são fortemente impactadas pela cultura global do consumo, emulando o consumo de países desenvolvidos e, similarmente, o da elite brasileira. Esta pesquisa adiciona nuances à análise do consumo de tais marcas dentro do estrato de alto poder econômico e baixo capital cultural, superando a análise binária de alto e baixo capital cultural de estudos anteriores, identificando e classificando quatro diferentes tipos de narrativas quanto a práticas e significados vinculados ao consumo dessas marcas. / The present study aims to understand the consumption of global iconic brands by consumers with high economic power and low cultural capital, in a developing country context. The consumption of global iconic brands helps individuals build and signal their social identity. The use and appropriation of global iconic brands, in the Brazilian context, act as a mechanism used to demarcate a favorable position within the social hierarchy and to generate distinction between individuals and social groups. Specifically, we sought to analyze and understand the discourses used by the consumers to signify, frame, justify and legitimize the consumption of these brands. The research has a qualitative and descriptive character and was carried out through in depth interviews and observation with twenty one women of high economic power and low cultural capital. As a result of this research, based on the different narratives identified, the discourses of the consumers of global iconic brands were categorized into four groups. The utilitarian verbalize that they consume for the functional benefits, not admitting to consume the symbolism. Rational ones reveal that they achieve individual pleasure, but discard the exhibitionist consumption. The ascendants consume as a source of individual pleasure and symbolism of the prestige achieved on account of professional and social ascension. Finally, exhibitionists consume the symbolic value of prestige in order to signal social differentiation towards the other and peers. In addition, consumers were strongly impacted by the global consumption culture, emulating the consumption of developed countries and, similarly, that of the Brazilian elite. This research adds nuances to the analysis of the consumption of such brands within the stratum of high economic power and low cultural capital, overcoming the binary analysis of high and low cultural capital of previous studies, identifying and classifying four different types of narratives regarding practices and meanings linked to the consumption of these brands.

This research proposes understanding the influences that cultural and social capitals exert on the immigrant entrepreneurship process of individuals who decided to move to a nation that is economically and culturally different from their home countries. Immigration is an increasingly phenomenon that affects several countries around the world, some of them having their economies heavily related to this group of people. When trying to find a job placement in the new market, most immigrants face difficulties such as language barriers, taste discrimination and lack of recognition of their accumulated capitals. A common option to reduce such challenges is pursuing entrepreneurship, which is usually related to fields that possess less influence of the aforementioned barriers, and that do not require much specific knowledge. Nevertheless, immigrant entrepreneurship has important differences when being compared to other types of entrepreneurship, and this fact is usually due to cultural and social aspects. In this context, it is inquired: “how does both the cultural and social capitals linked to the entrepreneur's country of origin relate to his/her opportunities to undertake and sustain an enterprise of the culinary field in a culturally and economically distinct country?”. In order to address this inquiry, four immigrant restaurant owners were interviewed. Two of them immigrated to England, coming from Latin American underdeveloped countries, while the other two immigrated to Brazil, coming from European developed nations. The semistructured interview script had 16 questions formulated according to Pierre Bourdieu’s concepts of cultural and social capitals, aiming at qualitatively understanding in what consisted these two types of capitals of each entrepreneur, as well as understanding how they related to each moment of their individual entrepreneurial journeys. The interviews were conducted in person in both cities of London and Florianópolis, during the first semester of 2016. The results show that all of the immigrant entrepreneurs faced some type of cultural shock and discrimination during their entrepreneurship processes, which is most evident in the Latin entrepreneurs. Regarding the influence of their cultural capitals, family influences, accumulated knowledge and professional experiences greatly influenced their entrepreneurship process, and the entrepreneurs who possessed the higher amount of accumulated and recognized cultural capital faced far less difficulties as immigrant entrepreneurs. When talking about their social capitals, the entrepreneurs mostly relied on their social connections with people born in their home countries or in nations more culturally similar to their own. These relations, however, were of different natures between the Latin and European immigrants. The social capital that mostly influenced the Latin entrepreneurs consisted on their families and Latin immigrant friends, who faced similar obstacles as they did. On the other hand, the social capital the European entrepreneurs relied during their entrepreneurial processes were friends born in their home countries, who are also renowned professionals in the culinary field and that were able to share valuable knowledge with them. This study contributes to the entrepreneurship field by addressing the emerging immigrant entrepreneurship topic, which is still being consolidated and has important gaps such as this one to be fulfilled.

As políticas públicas de desenvolvimento e distribuição de renda levadas a efeito durante a primeira década do nosso século alteraram os patamares de renda da parcela mais pobre da população brasileira, fenômeno que estaria dando origem àquilo que se passou a chamar de nova classe média brasileira. A redução das desigualdades sociais estaria atrelada, assim, a um processo de mobilidade social. Esse estudo se ocupa desse fenômeno. Para isso, apresenta, inicialmente, uma análise das políticas sociais implementadas, a partir de 2003, nos âmbitos econômico e educacional. A seguir, discute os conceitos de classe social e de mobilidade social, optando por considerar o fenômeno à luz do conceito de capital cultural, de Pierre Bourdieu, com o qual se define o traço distintivo da educação superior como marca da classe média. Assim, propôs-se a investigar a emergência desse traço em universitários oriundos de classes populares, que estariam em processo de mobilidade social. O trabalho de campo, que ouviu 35 estudantes de 16 diferentes cursos da Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, em metodologia de caráter qualitativo, permitiu verificar que os alunos entrevistados mantém seu perfil original de classe trabalhadora, embora sejam inequívocos os ganhos da realização do curso superior, em termos de realização própria e de perspectivas de futuro, tanto para o estudante quanto para o seu grupo social, o que aponta para uma alteração do perfil da classe trabalhadora, e não para a emergência de uma nova classe média. / Public policies aimed at promoting development and income distribution carried out during the first decade of the current century changed the income levels of the poorest segment of the population, a phenomenon that could explain the rise of what became known as the new Brazilian middle class. Therefore, the reduction of social inequalities could be linked to a process of social mobility. This study addresses this issue. It starts with an analysis of social policies implemented since 2003 in the economic and educational spheres. Next, social concepts of class and social mobility are discussed in light of Pierre Bourdieus cultural capital concept, which allows defining higher education as the peculiarity of the middle class. Thus, this study aimed to investigate the emergence of this trait among college students from lower classes who were undergoing a process of social mobility. A qualitative survey conducted with 35 students from 16 different courses at the Rio de Janeiro State University showed that students maintained their original working class profile, although the benefits of a higher education were unequivocal in terms of self-fulfillment and future prospects for both the students and their social class. Thus, results of this study suggest changes in the working class profile, and not to the emergence of a new middle class.

Esta dissertação centrou-se sobre a questão: De que modo o volume de capitais econômico, cultural e escolar dos vestibulandos da Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul influencia suas escolhas de curso de graduação. Para responder tal pergunta foi realizado um estudo quantitativo, utilizando o software SPSS versão 13.0. Foi selecionada uma amostra de 21 cursos de graduação do vestibular da UFRGS 2007. O modelo estatístico é formado por 8 variáveis explicativas relacionadas aos capitais econômico, cultural e escolar dos vestibulandos da UFRGS. A hipótese principal da dissertação afirma que os candidatos com alto volume de capitais econômico, cultural e escolar tendem a escolher os cursos de maior prestígio, mais concorridos e que dão acesso a profissões melhor remuneradas; e candidatos com baixo volume de capitais tendem a se inscrever, ao contrário, nos cursos menos prestigiados, menos concorridos e que formam para as profissões consideradas menos rentáveis. A hipótese acessória aponta a existência de um outro fator que exerce influência na escolha do curso superior que é a estrutura e a política institucionais. Os resultados empíricos apontaram para a confirmação das duas hipóteses. Há uma relação estatisticamente comprovada entre o volume de capitais do indivíduo e a escolha do curso de graduação. No entanto, no momento da escolha está também presente o aspecto institucional, ou seja, os incentivos e constrangimentos gerados pela instituição, e sua política referente, neste caso, ao acesso e inclusão de indivíduos com origens sociais distintas. Assim, a dissertação mostrou, por exemplo, que os cursos de Direito e Administração, considerados de alto prestígio, apresentam um perfil de candidato diferente a depender do turno em que é oferecido. O turno noturno atrai candidatos cujo volume de capitais econômico, cultural e escolar é mais baixo quando comparado ao seu equivalente diurno. Deste modo, é possível afirmar que além da influência do volume de capitais econômico, cultural e escolar, há um aspecto referente à estrutura e política institucionais que também interfere na escolha do curso de graduação. / This thesis has a central question: How the economic, cultural and academic capital of university applicants from Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul affects their choices of higher education degrees. To answer that question we made a quantitative analysis relying on the software SPSS 13.0. The research selected a sample of 21 degrees of Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul. The statistical model has 8 independent variables to account for the applicants’ economic, cultural and academic capital. The main hypothesis is that applicants with a high level of economic, cultural and academic capital tend to choose the most disputed and prestigious degrees whereas applicants with a low level of capital are more likely to choose the less disputed and prestigious degrees. The second hypothesis is that there is an additional factor that has an impact on applicants’ choice of a higher education course, relative to the institutional dimension. The results confirm both hypotheses. There is a statistical correlation between the volume of economic, cultural and academic capital possessed by individuals and the choice of more prestigious degrees. However the institutional dimension is also present. For instance the study shows that Law and Administration degrees both attract different applicant profiles depending on whether classes are offered mainly at night or during daytimes. Night classes attract applicants with a lower volume of economic, cultural and academic capital as compared to applicants that choose to attend daytime classes. Therefore we can say that besides the influence of economic, cultural and academic capital there is an institutional dimension that also interferes with applicants’ choices.

Submitted by Jean Vagner Silva de Oliveira (jean.oliveira@ucsal.br) on 2016-10-06T18:46:53Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação Patricia Biblioteca com ficha 15-06.pdf: 741928 bytes, checksum: f4aa89b9b0eb171fb4411575ba548e42 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Maria Emília Carvalho Ribeiro (maria.ribeiro@ucsal.br) on 2016-11-29T19:20:22Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação Patricia Biblioteca com ficha 15-06.pdf: 741928 bytes, checksum: f4aa89b9b0eb171fb4411575ba548e42 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-11-29T19:20:22Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação Patricia Biblioteca com ficha 15-06.pdf: 741928 bytes, checksum: f4aa89b9b0eb171fb4411575ba548e42 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-04-17 / A importância de aproximar as políticas sociais da população com reduzido acesso a bens básicos, torna possível uma sociedade menos injusta principalmente no item saúde. O interesse em estudar sobre promoção de saúde em pessoas em situação de pobreza foi a mola propulsora para a realização deste estudo, além disso, o interesse crescente da academia em realizar pesquisas com o universo masculino também estimulou o despertar pelo tema. Para a pesquisa, foi abordado, em especial, às condições de saúde dos homens, particularmente os vivendo na pobreza com o intuito de entender como estes homens enfrentam a condição de estar doente e utilizando a cadeira de rodas como meio de locomoção. Foi utilizado como modelo a Classificação Internacional de Funcionalidade Incapacidades e Saúde (CIF), na segunda parte, que trata do ambiente, visto ser a CIF o modelo de classificação em que se pode vislumbrar alguma mudança no campo social. A metodologia correspondeu a um estudo qualitativo com abordagem do tipo etnográfica utilizando a metodologia da história de vida. As técnicas utilizadas foram: observação direta e entrevistas semiestruturada. Os resultados obtidos demonstraram que a presença do capital social e cultural impacta na condição de saúde da população de baixa renda assim como a presença de barreiras de acessibilidade na mobilidade de pessoas que utilizam a cadeira de rodas como meio de locomoção. Neste estudo, mesmo com uma amostra reduzida, pode-se perceber o quanto o Estado está ausente das localidades periféricas, que o programa de proteção e recuperação da saúde não acontece nas comunidades carentes e o quanto são exacerbados os laços e vínculos entre os seus moradores na perspectiva de seguridade e coesão social, para assim poderem transpor todas as adversidades comuns a moradias em uma comunidade periférica. / The importance of approaching the social policies of the population with a little access to basics property makes the possibility of a less unfair society, mainly on the health item, come true. The interest on the study about the promotion of health to poor people was the driving force to the execution of this study, furthermore, the academy‟s growing interest about make researches with the male universe stimulated also the attention to the issue. To the research, was addressed, especially, the conditions of men‟s health, particularly those who live on a poor situation with the intention to understand how they can face the condition of being sick and using a wheelchair as the method of locomotion. As model was used the International Classification of Functioning Disability and Health (ICF), in the second part, that talks about the ambient, as the ICF is the classification model in which one is possible to glimpse a change in the social field. The methodology corresponded to a qualitative study with the ethnographic approach using the methodology of the life story. To get the result for the research were used the following techniques: direct observation and semi-structured interview. The results archived show that the social capital and cultural has an impact on the health condition of the low-income population as well as the presence of accessibility barriers on the mobility of the people who use wheelchair as method of locomotion. In this study, even with a reduced sample, can be perceived how the State is not present on the peripheral locations, which the health protection and recovery program does not happen on the poor communities and how exacerbated the ties and linkages between the neighbors are on the perspective of singularity and social cohesion, and then they can transpose all of the common adversities to houses in a poor community.

The present research included five black teachers that act in the initial of two public schools of the municipal district of Santa Maria/RS and it aimed to identify the present factors in the relationship between cultural capital and racial conscience in the choice of those teachers' profession. The guiding subject of the work was to know "what is the relationship between the cultural capital and the racial conscience in the choice of the black teachers' profession? "I investigated if the intellectual formation of the researched social agents of some form influenced their professional option, the teachers´ expectations regarding the profession; the evidences of racial conscience among them and as it reflects in the work methodology adopted in their pedagogic practice. / A presente pesquisa envolveu cinco professoras negras que atuam nos anos iniciais de duas escolas públicas do município de Santa Maria/RS e teve por objetivo identificar os fatores presentes na relação entre capital cultural e consciência racial na escolha da profissão dessas professoras. A questão norteadora do trabalho foi saber qual a relação entre o capital cultural e a consciência racial na escolha da profissão de professoras negras? Investiguei se a formação intelectual das agentes sociais pesquisadas de alguma forma influenciou sua opção profissional, as expectativas das professoras com relação à profissão; as evidências de consciência racial entre elas e como isso se reflete na metodologia de trabalho adotada em sua prática pedagógica.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-06-02T19:39:38Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 5526.pdf: 1641906 bytes, checksum: 6895cb8bc9f8b9fb6158dd4de7dca0e7 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-08-29 / This work falls within the scope of researches on the school career / academic students of different social groups. This is a study on the performance of Brazilian students in the National Performance Higher Education (ENADE). In this sense, the research aims to investigate the existence of possible relationships between socioeconomic background and academic performance of students of higher education in Enade, seeking to answer the question: socioeconomic status of students can influence their performance on the exam? For this, we used the Sociology of Education Pierre Bourdieu, as this author is responsible for developing studies on trajectories, considering the intrinsically linked to cultural capital inherited from the family and social status, ie, elements which together, gather facts related to positions and social processes essential to understanding the meanings of these positions. The analysis of the data that make up the socioeconomic profile of students as well as the result in the proof of the general education Enade revealed that factors such as the type of school attended in high school and ethnicity exerted influence on the performance achieved by the individuals. / Este trabalho insere-se no âmbito das pesquisas que abordam a trajetória escolar/acadêmica de estudantes dos diferentes grupos sociais. Trata-se de um estudo sobre o desempenho de estudantes brasileiros no Exame Nacional de Desempenho do Ensino Superior (ENADE). Nesse sentido, a pesquisa tem como objetivo investigar a existência de possíveis relações entre o perfil socioeconômico e o desempenho acadêmico de estudantes do ensino superior no Enade, buscando responder o seguinte questionamento: as condições socioeconômicas dos estudantes podem influenciar no seu desempenho no exame? Para isso, fizemos uso da Sociologia da Educação de Pierre Bourdieu, uma vez que tal autor é responsável por ter desenvolvido estudos sobre trajetórias, considerando-as intrinsecamente ligadas ao capital cultural herdado da família e à posição social, ou seja, elementos que, em conjunto, reúnem fatos ligados a posições e processos sociais imprescindíveis para a compreensão dos sentidos dessas posições. A análise dos dados que compõem o perfil socioeconômico dos estudantes, bem como o resultado na prova de formação geral do Enade revelou que fatores como o tipo de escola cursado no ensino médio e a etnia exerceram influência no desempenho apresentado pelos avaliados.

Esta dissertação tem com objeto de análise a permanência e o êxito dos estudantes do último ano dos cursos de ensino médio integrado do Campus Restinga do Instituto Federal de Educação, Ciência e Tecnologia do Rio Grande do Sul. No intuito de compreender a seletividade escolar, a qual não é exclusividade no Campus Restinga mas pode ser vista com uma realidade em âmbito nacional, foram utilizados como instrumentos de coleta de dados a aplicação de questionário e a realização de entrevistas semiestruturadas junto às turmas de quarto ano do Curso de Técnico em Informática para Internet e Curso Técnico em Eletrônica, ambos integrados ao ensino médio. Esta seletividade escolar é incongruente com a legislação educacional, com a política pública de educação profissional da contemporaneidade e com as normativas internas do IFRS. Mobilizando aportes da Sociologia da Educação, a hipótese inicial é a de que haveria relação entre a permanência e o êxito com o processo de formação do habitus dos estudantes vinculado tanto ao capital cultural implicado pela origem social (BOURDIEU, 1998) quanto ao aprendizado do ofício de aluno (PERRENOUD, 1995). Como resultado foi possível observar que as exigências institucionais operadas pelos agentes sociais responsáveis pelos processos de ensino-aprendizagem têm sido maiores do que os instrumentos de gestão pedagógica presentes na instituição para favorecer a permanência e o êxito estudantil. Confirmando-se a hipótese inicial, verificou-se que a permanência e o êxito estudantil guardam uma relação muito próxima com três questões: formação do habitus dos estudantes vinculado ao capital cultural implicado pela origem social; aprendizado do ofício de aluno com destaque ao processo de adaptação e conformação dos estudantes mediante às exigências implícitas e explícitas postuladas pela escola; e, finalmente, a busca pela realização do ensino médio integrado como forma de preparação para o Enem e/ou vestibular a fim de posterior ingresso em um curso superior. / This master’s dissertation focuses on the permanence and success of final year students of integrated high school courses of the Federal Institute of Education, Science and Technology of Rio Grande do Sul (IFRS) - Campus Restinga. In order to understand the school selectivity, which is not exclusivity at Campus Restinga but may be seen as a reality at the national level, the application of a questionnaire and semi-structured interviews were used as data collection instruments. The participants of this study were fourth year students of Technical Course in Informatics for Internet and Technical Course in Electronics, both integrated to high school regular course. Such school selectivity is inconsistent with the educational legislation, the contemporary public policy for vocational education and the internal regulations of IFRS. With contributions of Sociology of Education, the initial hypothesis is that there would be a relationship between permanence and success with the formation of students’ habitus related to both the cultural capital implied by social origin (BOURDIEU, 1998) and the learning of student’s craft (PERRENOUD, 1995). As a result, it was observed that the institutional requirements applied by the social agents responsible for teaching-learning processes have been higher than the instruments of educational management present in the institution to promote students’ permanence and success. Confirming the initial hypothesis, it was found that students’ permanence and success are closely related to three issues: formation of students’ habitus related to the cultural capital implied by social origin; learning of students’ craft, highlighting students’ adaptation and conformation processes by implicit and explicit requirements postulated by the school; and finally, the search for the integrated high school course as a preparation for the High School National Exam (ENEM) and/or admission tests to subsequent entrance in universities.

This research proposes understanding the influences that cultural and social capitals exert on the immigrant entrepreneurship process of individuals who decided to move to a nation that is economically and culturally different from their home countries. Immigration is an increasingly phenomenon that affects several countries around the world, some of them having their economies heavily related to this group of people. When trying to find a job placement in the new market, most immigrants face difficulties such as language barriers, taste discrimination and lack of recognition of their accumulated capitals. A common option to reduce such challenges is pursuing entrepreneurship, which is usually related to fields that possess less influence of the aforementioned barriers, and that do not require much specific knowledge. Nevertheless, immigrant entrepreneurship has important differences when being compared to other types of entrepreneurship, and this fact is usually due to cultural and social aspects. In this context, it is inquired: “how does both the cultural and social capitals linked to the entrepreneur's country of origin relate to his/her opportunities to undertake and sustain an enterprise of the culinary field in a culturally and economically distinct country?”. In order to address this inquiry, four immigrant restaurant owners were interviewed. Two of them immigrated to England, coming from Latin American underdeveloped countries, while the other two immigrated to Brazil, coming from European developed nations. The semistructured interview script had 16 questions formulated according to Pierre Bourdieu’s concepts of cultural and social capitals, aiming at qualitatively understanding in what consisted these two types of capitals of each entrepreneur, as well as understanding how they related to each moment of their individual entrepreneurial journeys. The interviews were conducted in person in both cities of London and Florianópolis, during the first semester of 2016. The results show that all of the immigrant entrepreneurs faced some type of cultural shock and discrimination during their entrepreneurship processes, which is most evident in the Latin entrepreneurs. Regarding the influence of their cultural capitals, family influences, accumulated knowledge and professional experiences greatly influenced their entrepreneurship process, and the entrepreneurs who possessed the higher amount of accumulated and recognized cultural capital faced far less difficulties as immigrant entrepreneurs. When talking about their social capitals, the entrepreneurs mostly relied on their social connections with people born in their home countries or in nations more culturally similar to their own. These relations, however, were of different natures between the Latin and European immigrants. The social capital that mostly influenced the Latin entrepreneurs consisted on their families and Latin immigrant friends, who faced similar obstacles as they did. On the other hand, the social capital the European entrepreneurs relied during their entrepreneurial processes were friends born in their home countries, who are also renowned professionals in the culinary field and that were able to share valuable knowledge with them. This study contributes to the entrepreneurship field by addressing the emerging immigrant entrepreneurship topic, which is still being consolidated and has important gaps such as this one to be fulfilled.

Esta dissertação centrou-se sobre a questão: De que modo o volume de capitais econômico, cultural e escolar dos vestibulandos da Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul influencia suas escolhas de curso de graduação. Para responder tal pergunta foi realizado um estudo quantitativo, utilizando o software SPSS versão 13.0. Foi selecionada uma amostra de 21 cursos de graduação do vestibular da UFRGS 2007. O modelo estatístico é formado por 8 variáveis explicativas relacionadas aos capitais econômico, cultural e escolar dos vestibulandos da UFRGS. A hipótese principal da dissertação afirma que os candidatos com alto volume de capitais econômico, cultural e escolar tendem a escolher os cursos de maior prestígio, mais concorridos e que dão acesso a profissões melhor remuneradas; e candidatos com baixo volume de capitais tendem a se inscrever, ao contrário, nos cursos menos prestigiados, menos concorridos e que formam para as profissões consideradas menos rentáveis. A hipótese acessória aponta a existência de um outro fator que exerce influência na escolha do curso superior que é a estrutura e a política institucionais. Os resultados empíricos apontaram para a confirmação das duas hipóteses. Há uma relação estatisticamente comprovada entre o volume de capitais do indivíduo e a escolha do curso de graduação. No entanto, no momento da escolha está também presente o aspecto institucional, ou seja, os incentivos e constrangimentos gerados pela instituição, e sua política referente, neste caso, ao acesso e inclusão de indivíduos com origens sociais distintas. Assim, a dissertação mostrou, por exemplo, que os cursos de Direito e Administração, considerados de alto prestígio, apresentam um perfil de candidato diferente a depender do turno em que é oferecido. O turno noturno atrai candidatos cujo volume de capitais econômico, cultural e escolar é mais baixo quando comparado ao seu equivalente diurno. Deste modo, é possível afirmar que além da influência do volume de capitais econômico, cultural e escolar, há um aspecto referente à estrutura e política institucionais que também interfere na escolha do curso de graduação. / This thesis has a central question: How the economic, cultural and academic capital of university applicants from Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul affects their choices of higher education degrees. To answer that question we made a quantitative analysis relying on the software SPSS 13.0. The research selected a sample of 21 degrees of Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul. The statistical model has 8 independent variables to account for the applicants’ economic, cultural and academic capital. The main hypothesis is that applicants with a high level of economic, cultural and academic capital tend to choose the most disputed and prestigious degrees whereas applicants with a low level of capital are more likely to choose the less disputed and prestigious degrees. The second hypothesis is that there is an additional factor that has an impact on applicants’ choice of a higher education course, relative to the institutional dimension. The results confirm both hypotheses. There is a statistical correlation between the volume of economic, cultural and academic capital possessed by individuals and the choice of more prestigious degrees. However the institutional dimension is also present. For instance the study shows that Law and Administration degrees both attract different applicant profiles depending on whether classes are offered mainly at night or during daytimes. Night classes attract applicants with a lower volume of economic, cultural and academic capital as compared to applicants that choose to attend daytime classes. Therefore we can say that besides the influence of economic, cultural and academic capital there is an institutional dimension that also interferes with applicants’ choices.