THE HISTORY OF UNIVERSITIES IN BRAZIL AND THE INTERNATIONALIZATION OF THE UNIVERSITY SYSTEM

This article is result on the thesis of Doctorate in Education: Curriculum, titled - "Higher Education Institutions and Social Responsibility: A study of the representations of leadership of the Brazilian Higher Education", defended at the Pontifical Catholic University of Sao Paulo (PUC-SP), and aims to focus on the aspects related to the concept of social responsibility of higher education institutions and its relationship with the university system internationalization. This study presents a brief historical rescue of the Brazilian universities emergence and seeks to analyse the concept of internationalization of the university system. The methodological approach of this study uses a qualitative research, basing on the methodology of social representations to analyze and understand the perception of leadership of the Brazilian Higher Education. From the objectives point of view, the research was characterized as documentary, bibliographical and field research. As for data collection strategy it was used observation techniques, questionnaires and reflective interviews.