A universidade como disputa da reprodução social: contribuição ao debate sobre os mestrados profissionais.

The following paper explores the role played by Professional Master Courses in Brazilian universities. These Courses can be considered as a new educational experience in the Brazilian academic field and they are presented here as holders of an innovative potential for the universities as a whole. Those new initiatives can renew the way the Brazilian academic field produces knowledge and also the manner that this knowledge interacts with the society as a whole. The paper analyzes this subject as a social conflict and reveals the way that market friendly practices in Brazilian universities are able to appropriate this novelty. The author argues that such market friendly practices must not be the only way to deal with Professional Master Courses and invites the reader to view them in terms of a social dispute for public education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]