HIGHER EDUCATION TRAINING FOR ARCHIVISTS IN BRAZIL

STUDENTS’ PERCEPTION TOWARDS INFORMATION MEDIATION

Abstract

This research aims to verify the higher education training for archivists in Brazil for information mediation, based on the understanding that the first Archival Science courses were implemented in the 1970s, a time that coincides with the theoretical contribution of information science. Its specific objective is to: a) identify Brazilian higher education institutions that address mediation and information mediation; b) delineate the profile of students completing the Archival Science courses studied; and c) demonstrate the perception of conclusive students the information mediation in the curriculum. It is justified by reflecting the archivist's training process in higher education institutions, as a sensitive listening, to capture nuances about the theory and practice of information mediation, which is discussed in Information Science and Library Science and Documentation, and is timely in Archival Science. Thus, this is a descriptive research, being a study of multiple cases carried out in the sixteen Undergraduate Courses in Archival Science, using the technique to organize and interpret the data, content analysis, in a qualitative and quantitative approach. The training of archivists in Brazil for information mediation includes five higher education institutions, located in the South and Southeast regions, three of which are linked to the School and/or Department of Information Science, demonstrating the close relationship between the areas. The identification of the content of the teaching plans provides evidence of the action of the information mediator in an implicit and explicit way. In addition, the research subjects have a greater representation of the female sex, declared themselves to be white, in the age range of 18 to 35 years old, developing work activity and/or internship. In the perception of the students, the archivist performs role of information mediator. Mediation is understood as a generic concept used in the areas of Law and Communication, however the terms information mediation and cultural mediation appear in the mandatory curricular components and in different curricular components, transversally. In view of the above, the training of the archivist for mediation (cultural, information, archival) enables new forms of learning and knowledge development.