Histórias e memórias da institucionalização acadêmica da terapia ocupacional no Brasil : de meados da década de 1950 a 1983

Abstract

Only in the 1930s that guidelines were established to parameterize the university education in Brazil. This late development linked with educational conservatism and the centralizing policies of the state mobilized demands from students, teachers and society for the modernization and expansion of universities. Amidst these clashes, in the 1950s, occupational therapy was established in the country, resulting from a process of great expansion of rehabilitation around the world, in which the training of technical workforce to work in the area was essential. For that, the first technical courses of occupational therapy in Brazil were created in the 1950s, in the states of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. In the following decade, in Pernambuco and Minas Gerais. Concomitant with the promulgation of the University Reform (1968) and the expansion of universities in the country, in the military regime (1964-1985), the profession was regulated to a university level (1969) and its graduate courses expanded to other Brazilian states, which demanded occupational therapists for teaching. However, this university character of professional qualification was consolidated only in 1983, when a consistent minimum curriculum was established to be implemented until 1984. Thus, this research aimed to understand the process of academic institutionalization of occupational therapy in Brazil, between the years of 1950 and 1983, based on the vision of those who were pioneers in this process. The work is developed through the precepts of the oral history of fourteen occupational therapists, pioneering teachers in the teaching of occupational therapy in the country. Through their memories expressed orally, it was possible to create primary sources about the history of occupational therapy and understand their academic paths and their propositions about the training in occupational therapy, as well as the courses they were connected to as teachers. Also, materials were collected from the personal files of the collaborators, which became documents for this research. Through the analysis of the narratives, the collected documents and the systematized bibliographical references, it was possible to reconstruct stories about the implantation of each of the occupational therapy courses, during the studied period. These stories are about the processes of creation of the first courses, their trajectories of consolidation and closure, when it was the case, and the development of the teaching career of professionals linked to the teaching of occupational therapy in such institutions. Finally, the individual trajectories of the pioneer teachers were highlighted with regard to the needs for the construction of this new professional category with the establishment of occupational therapy courses in Brazil, emphasizing common themes in the narratives and, also, the which was constitutive, although peculiar.