In the 1980s higher education experienced a series of transformations, commencing the debates about a new model of higher education institutions - the community university - and also of an evaluative culture in Brazil. During the following decades, this model of institution tried to strengthen its bases in the higher education scenario of the country, showing its primary characteristics and its differences from the public and the private branches of higher education. These universities were instituted in various regions of the country with emphasis in the southern region, where a Consortium of the Gaucho Community Universities (COMUNG) was created. They also developed their own mechanism of evaluation, with concerns about (re)thinking its teaching, research, extension and management methods. The purpose of this research is to achieve an understanding of the institutional evaluation system in community universities in southern Brazil and to verify how social responsibility is inserted in the evaluation process. It also studies the historical and cultural processes and the adaptations that were necessary when the National Higher Education Evaluation System (SINAES) was created.
Higher education; Brazil; Community university; Community universities from southern Brazil; Higher education; Evaluation; Universities; Social responsibility
