Análise dos conteúdos sobre acessibilidade e desenho universal nos cursos de graduação em arquitetura e urbanismo e terapia ocupacional no Brasil

Abstract

Accessibility and Universal Design concepts were initially directed toward the conception of objects, equipment and the physical space of the Person with Deficiency. These themes became more relevant in so far as their usage included people in general, independent of their physical, cognitional and sensorial limitations. Considering the importance of these themes to the professionals of Occupational Therapy and Architecture and Urbanism and the present legislation which refers to these themes, the purpose of this work is to investigate how the concepts of Accessibility and Universal Design are presented on curriculum content of undergraduate programs for those professions, in both Federal and State Brazilian Universities. The sampling criteria in this research took the data of 32 out of 51 courses of Architecture and Urbanism and 8 out of 19 courses of Occupational Therapy . These courses had either (a) Political-pedagogical projects and/or Curriculum Grids available on-line, (b) course description, (c) objectives or (d) contents which dealt with Accessibility and/or Universal Design. These data were analyzed through Content Analysis followed by a descriptive analysis using both quantitative and qualitative approaches. The results showed that Occupational Therapy courses are more directed towards the user while Architecture and Urbanism courses are more directed towards the space. It was also possible to see several different ways of focusing Accessibility, according to the different discipline subjects. This shows a lack of homogeneity among the universities, in both course-areas. Concerning the concept of Universal Design, while it is included broadly in the programs of Architecture and Urbanism, it is absent in the programs of Occupational Therapy. It was also understood that although there are disciplines that aim at analyzing Accessibility and Universal Design they are either optional or they are only themes which are part of other subjects.

Keywords: Architecture and Urbanism, Accessibility, Universal Design, Occupational Therapy, University Graduation Courses.