O processo de institucionalização da educação a distância na Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCar) no período de 2004 a 2018 ; The institutionalization process of distance education at the Federal University of São Carlos (UFSCar) from 2004 to 2018

The institutionalization of distance education (DE), based on the Institutional Theory, can be understood as a process based on the dynamics of interaction between the university and the educational field. His analysis then includes, on the one hand, exogenous elements related to the pressures exerted by the field for the university to offer courses at a distance. On the other hand, it involves endogenous elements related to the continuous and gradual adaptations carried out by the university to systematically insert the DE into its internal structural arrangement in order to legitimize itself socially. In Brazil, DE settled in the educational field with Law 9.394/1996, being configured as a modality with the potential to democratize the access to Higher Education. The Universidade Aberta do Brasil System (UAB), instituted in 2006, consisted of the most relevant public policy in the induction of distance courses offered by public higher education institutions that, from the moment of adhesion, initiate the necessary structural and organizational changes and changes to meet the specificities concerning the management of DE systems. Therefore, the general objective of this thesis was to analyze the institutionalization of the DE at the Federal University of São Carlos (UFSCar) and the specific ones were: to identify and describe the history of the institutionalization of DE in UFSCar, relating it to the educational field Brazilian; characterize the structure of academic-pedagogical and administrative management created to support the offer of courses in the distance modality, as well as the type of DE adopted by UFSCar; mapping and analyzing the factors that limit the institutionalization of DE in the university, identifying its nature; identify and analyze the most significant elements in favor of the institutionalization of DE in UFSCar and; to analyze the perspectives regarding the institutionalization of DE at UFSCar. In order to do so, a qualitative research was carried out, through the survey and study of ...