The path of social occupational therapy in a Higher Education institution: trajectory in teaching, research, and extension

Abstract

In the 1980s, during the social occupational therapy construction process in Brazil, there was a shift from the centrality of health and illness to social phenomena resulting from social and cultural inequalities. It is worth noting that social occupational therapy has gained notoriety both in Brazil and internationally. Despite the advances in this area, the literature points out that the main bottlenecks for the formation of social occupational therapy have been the insufficiency of human resources and the almost exclusive emphasis of the curricular guidelines of occupational therapy courses on the health area. In this scenario, it becomes relevant to deepen the analysis on how social occupational therapy has been constituted in other courses in the country, in addition to the state of São Paulo, cradle of its emergence. This experience report aims to discuss the constitution of social occupational therapy, based on the historical process that enabled its emergence, its advances and setbacks in the UFMG undergraduate course. It is verified that social occupational therapy is gradually being consolidated in the course at UFMG, legitimizing the space for the education of occupational therapists. It is evident that the configuration of this area occurs in a field of active forces, as it advances, retreats and/or maintains itself. A power of its expansion lies in the combination of the dimensions of teaching, research, extension, public policies, and services practices.