Incorporating social justice learning into competency-based graduate nursing: A discussion of integrating pedagogies.

Abstract

The impact of social inequity on the collective health of a society is well documented and, despite decades of research, the problem persists on a global scale. Nurse practitioners are competent to treat the downstream health effects of social inequity, but nursing students may lack the structural awareness to accurately target primary prevention efforts. The authors discuss faculty preparation and pedagogical considerations when incorporating social justice learning into a graduate and post-graduate psychiatric nurse practitioner course. Guided by Walter's Emancipatory Nursing Praxis model, several pedagogical strategies were developed to enhance graduate nursing students' awareness of oppressive and unjust realities in the healthcare setting. Emancipatory pedagogical strategies in competency-based graduate nursing education can enhance the transformative social learning essential for the development of health equity praxis.