MULTIPLE BRAZILS AT FACULDADES EST: PLURALITY, WELCOME, AND INTERCULTURAL DIALOGUE IN THE PROFESSIONAL MASTER’S PROGRAM

Abstract

This article critically analyzes the convergence of students from diverse geographical regions and academic trajectories within the Professional Master's program at Faculdades EST, problematizing the university context as a mediated and tensioned site of Brazilian plurality. Grounded in the premise of "Multiple Brazils," it investigates how this heterogeneity of individuals navigates historical asymmetries of knowledge and power, and how institutional and faculty welcoming functions as an intentional praxis of equity and congruence. Based on a hermeneutic reflection and a theoretical-interpretive synthesis, the work is grounded in Santos’s (2019) ecology of knowledges, Candau’s (2012) critical interculturality, Hall’s (2006) deconstruction of identities, Freire’s (1996) pedagogy of autonomy, Rogers’s (1977) person-centered approach, and Buber’s (2012) dialogic principle, rejecting naive or folkloric views of diversity. It concludes that the symmetrical and congruent welcome offered by the institution and its faculty does not aim to neutralize the conflicts inherent in the encounter of differences, but rather to build an ethical-pedagogical foundation so that the friction between distinct worldviews can be converted into epistemic emancipation and the production of socially situated knowledge derived from the plurality contained within Brazilian society.