Community and communitarian are widely used terms, in the past as well as in the present, in the discourse of organizations, institutions and social actors, and are characterized by their polysemous qualities. As with the Brazilian case, distinct initiatives have invoked the communitarian nature throughout history. In common, the self-reference to the collective interest and not being owned by the State. To distinguish them, the varied ideological perspectives, the different ways of interacting with the State and society, the internal forms of organization. The mobilization of the communitarian institutions for higher education in Brazil in favor of their own legal framework, strengthens the communitarian discourse under the not State-owned public perspective. This text approaches the main experiences of the communitarian in Brazilian education and discusses the meaning of the communitarian as a public and yet not state-owned institution.
Community; Communitarian institutions; Not state-owned public institution; Communitarian legal framework