Widening access to higher education has been a political issue in Brazil for a long time, but only in the early 2000s was the education system changed radically. Affirmative action policies were combined with the expansion of the network of federal universities and new funding programmes for higher education. This created a generation of people who are the first within their families to go to university.This book portrays the life stories of mothers who are paid domestic workers in Brazil, and their daughters who belong to the first generation to obtain a higher education degree. The author...