Para que existir? O funcionamento discursivo dos motivos da existência das Instituições Comunitárias de Educação Superior.

Abstract

Higher education institutions in Brazil are categorized administratively as public, private, and community-based, as defined by law. Community-based higher education institutions (CBHEIs), within the space of Brazil's third sector of education, have a nonstate public function, committed to providing services that bind them to communitarianism, while being privately owned and belonging to segments of society organizations. CBHEIs are non-profit institutions, their financial resources are conditioned to reinvestment in their own academic, administrative, and community activities. Although they are established in the landscape of higher education, both undergraduate and postgraduate, they still face the dilemma of being perceived, within the social imaginary, in the same realm as for-profit private institutions, operating according to market logic. Discussions on strengthening a profile that reflects their third-sector peculiarities, and confronting the dichotomy rooted in a culture based on the public/private binary, date back to their origins and persist today. With the growth of the education market, finding ways to differentiate between private and communitybased institutions is increasingly urgent. Consequently, this study aims to contribute effectively to reflections that may impact the projection of I CBHEIs’ image as a nonstate public entity. Institutional mission is the most relevant factor in shaping and disseminating an organization's identity, as well as a legal requirement for regulation and supervision by the Ministry of Education. The mission should also be included in official documents regarding their activities and planning. In this perspective, it becomes crucial to understand how CBHEIs formulate their missions, which involves the communicational practice of articulating the reasons for their existence. Thus, we aim to analyze the discursive functioning of community-based institutions, considering the relationship between their heterogeneous conditions and the search for a common ground as part of the third sector of education. To do so, we apply the theoreticalmethodological framework of French Discourse Analysis (FDA), founded by Michel Pêcheux. The concepts of production conditions, including socio-historical context, immediate circumstances, imaginary relations, and discursive formation, serve as the basis for achieving our main and specific objectives. The research corpus consists of the discursive materiality of the missions of 52 institutions affiliated with the Brazilian Association of Community-Based Higher Education Institutions, with the qualification of community-based conferred by the Ministry of Education. The results highlight the commitment of CBHEIs to comprehensive higher education, emphasizing, among other aspects, the encouragement of critical consciousness and behavior based on moral values, aimed at intervening in society regarding development, transformation, justice, fraternity, sustainability, a good society, and Christian faith.