This thesis develops the theme conditions of access and retention of women from urban peripheries, in particular, Duque de Caxias – Baixada Fluminense, to higher education. By here is processing to a theoretical methodological and ethical policy option anchored in critical dialectical method, which focuses on the understanding of the whole and not in isolation some of its fragments. The research problem is not only to understand what the main tensions and issues surrounding choice for these women access to higher education, but can understand most social structures, political, economic and cultural factors that influence this choice and its permanence. The thesis is structured in three main areas of discussion that are interwoven in a dynamic and complex: territoriality, higher education, and gender. Aims to identify the perceptions of these women on the existence of social policies in Duque de Caxias related to education and gender relations and public social policies toward women and the existence of other types of social organizations and networks with demonstrations same goals; describe the socio-economic profile of women in upper-level educational courses in Duque de Caxias, analyze the trajectory of women in Duque de Caxias attending college, the difficulties they face, as well as making it easy and / or mobilizes its permanence courses chosen; understand the role and meaning of education for women in Duque de Caxias and how formal institutions influence this building today (state, family, school, religion). As theoretical support, relies mainly on contributions from authors Marxists intent on understanding the social reality as historical fact, dynamic, complex and full of substrate. Develops empirical qualitative and quantitative, through questionnaires and semi-structured interviews with female students of an institution of higher education in Duque de Caxias three different courses, and with the use of triangulation seeks to collate the data analysis bibliographical and documentary. The research findings point to the conclusion that students, given the objective and subjective conditions in achieving their higher education courses in Duque de Caxias, are subject to a clear process of long-term alienation that results in continuous confrontation of complex experiences and no obvious major challenges of political, identity and material with the predominance of violence consented and constructed throughout the history of the region in line with the larger processes nationally.