Graduated in Social Sciences from the Federal University of Ceará in 1968. Master’s and PhD in Sociology from the University of Brasilia, her thesis is entitled The public and the private in Brazilian education: the conflict in the Constituent Assembly (1987-1988). She held a postdoctoral stay at the New School for Social Research in New York, with studies on Hannah Arendt. Full professor at the Department of Sociology of the University of Brasilia. Coauthor of the books: Marx morreu: viva Marx! (1993); Politics, science and culture in Max Weber (2000); Politics and values (2000); and Itinerários by Barbara Freitag (2005). She has published several articles in the areas of political sociology, with research on the political sphere, federal legislative and political reform, sociology of education with emphasis on public universities, sociology of youth, focused on the problems of the generations.