Teaching Anti-oppressive Socially Just Nursing: A How-to Précis

Nurses in the UK are mandated by the Nursing and Midwifery Council to embrace and embody anti-oppressive values, attributes, and practice. In response, a first of its kind in the UK Nursing and Social Justice module has been taught to nursing students at Canterbury Christ Church University since 2018. Each week a critical focus is on 1 of 5 topics: intersectionality, gender, sexuality, disability, and activism. Content enables discussion about how society views and positions people within an illness paradigm and attaches oppressive labels. Students use critical frameworks to critique dominant biomedical approaches to health, disability, and illness to enhance their anti-oppressive health activism skills. Experts by experience talk in-person with students. Partnerships with charities, eg, The Terence Higgins Trust, are also part of delivery. Module reading draws on abolitionist and critical social, cultural, and feminist literature. Assessment sees students take inspiration from topics discussed in class to produce artwork (drawing, painting, sculpture, poem, performance, etc.). The creation is a piece of activism, challenging dominant sociopolitical and biomedical approaches to health, disability, and illness. An oral reflective narrative accompanies this, investigating students’ emotional and psychological responses to learning, presenting a critical view of their privilege, values, beliefs, and biases. Nurse educators should develop socially just content and innovative assessments to teach anti-oppressive values and practice to nursing students.