In Brazil, indigenous peoples were neglected, silenced and devalued, with their culture, habits
and traditions forgotten, in order to impose a civilizational, colonizing and racist culture that
persists to this day. In this segment, this dissertation has as main objective to map possibilities,
expectations and difficulties of the Akwẽ-Xerente in the entry and permanence in the Federal
University of Tocantins - UFT, campus Miracema do Tocantins. For the development of the
study, surveys were made on: the slave and genocidal practices that have a result in the colonial
period, practices that make up the Brazilian educational genesis, on the creation of the state of
Tocantins, developing a brief presentation of who the Akwẽ-Xerente are, focusing on
characteristics of traditional Akwẽ education, which has currently taken new directions from the
perspective of entering and staying in higher education, this being an option of resistance,
maintenance and cultural reaffirmation. The present work raises questions about the disinterest
and the mistaken and prejudiced views on the part of the population about the culture of the
Akwẽ indigenous peoples (various manifestations and rites), discusses about the field of Social
Work and its action in relation to the defense of the survival of the culture and customs of
indigenous peoples and finally presents and develops questions about affirmative action
policies aimed at the permanence of indigenous students in the Universities, more precisely in
uft and the perception of indigenous students about the functioning of these policies and about
their experiences in the university. The method used was qualitative, bibliographic,
documentary and field research through participant observation, interviews and dialogues with
the Akwẽ, gathering reports of experiences of indigenous students of UFT. After collecting and
discussing the data obtained, it was concluded that indigenous education has always suffered
and still suffers cultural deficiency in school and higher education and that academic spaces,
despite being composed of indigenous students, are still spaces with colonizing stretches that
require revisions when it comes to the forms of reception, representations, methodologies and
other conditions, such as awareness of the need to analyze indigenous educational issues under
a historical and critical bias, sensitive to listen, learn and recognize the misinformation that
surrounds us about these peoples.
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