What do health professions educators do to enhance social justice and produce graduates who espouse social accountability?

Niri Naidoo
Purpose:


The aim of this study was to present Physiotherapy lecturers' understanding of a socially responsive curriculum at a University in South Africa.

The objectives were to:

  • Link the realities and challenges of healthcare in South Africa
  • Contribute to the development of healthcare professionals who are clinically competent and critically conscious of the contexts in which they serve and practice. 
  • Explore teaching practices that take future healthcare professionals beyond biomedical models towards contextually responsive models of HPE.
Methods:

A sub-study within a large collaborative study focused on the Physiotherapy programme at one tertiary institution. The study was a qualitative, exploratory and interpretive research design using focus groups and interviews. The study population was purposively selected lecturers. A social inquiry format was applied, using a two-stage approach: firstly, review of relevant curriculum documents (to identify stimulus points); and secondly, qualitative data gathered through a focus group (11 participants), followed by seven individual interviews. A coding framework was developed collaboratively and heuristically by the research team. 

 

Results:

Results

The following themes/sub-themes emerged: 

  • Understandings (sub-themes: Awareness, social accountability, social Justice, responsiveness to context, Holistic approach, philosophical underpinnings)
  • Paedagogies (sub-themes: Reflection, beyond the classroom, facilitating learning, modelling the role, assessing differently).
  • Curriculum (sub-themes: Embedded versus stand-alone, more than content, balance, coherence, ongoing curriculum renewal, curriculum implementation).
  • HPE teachers (sub-themes: Being a reflective practitioner, identity, Challenges and enablers facing HPE teachers, HPE teachers’ expectations of students). 
Conclusion(s):

The varied understandings of social justice and critical consciousness revealed the urgent need to address this. Reflection, reflective practices and contextual awareness were effected differently and sometimes inconsistently. The Biopsychosocial model implies holistic patient care should be emphasised to achieve successful patient healthcare outcomes.

Implications:

Implications

  • There is urgent need for HPE research in Physiotherapy.
  • Awareness and understanding of social justice and critical consciousness
  • Change biases and attitudes of students and staff, impact of staff development 
  • Structured time for students to address above.
  • Framework and language for analysis, inequity discussions, teach students how to take action, etc. to contribute to critical consciousness development.
Funding acknowledgements:
No funding was received by the author for this study
Keywords:
Social justice
graduate competencies
critical consciousness
Primary topic:
Education
Second topic:
Education: methods of teaching and learning
Third topic:
Education: clinical
Did this work require ethics approval?:
Yes
Name the institution and ethics committee that approved your work:
University of Cape Town Human Research Ethics Committee (UCT HREC)
Provide the ethics approval number:
HREC 674/2021
Has any of this material been/due to be published or presented at another national or international conference prior to the World Physiotherapy Congress 2025?:
No

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