While others are preparing for the 2016 Summer Olympics, a Duke research team is working in Rio de Janeiro to study the effects of the Brazilian government’s expansion of the university system. 

As part of Duke’s Global Brazil Lab, students and faculty are working alongside Brazilian scholars and students at the Multidisciplinary Institute of the Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro. The team—which formed from a Bass Connections program—is residing and working in Baixada, a lower-income region in the city’s lowlands, to assess how changes to higher education will impact social mobility in the country.