Framework for empowering student nurses for social justice praxis

INTRODUCTION
Social justice is considered the root of nursing responsibilities due to historical and enduring practices of promoting health and redressing social barriers that impact on health. This statement is supported in the literature and philosophies of national and international nursing organisations. However, in the United Kingdom, scholarly interest and nursing organisational position is ambiguous on social justice.
AIM AND OBJECTIVES
My research aim was to explore ideas for empowering student nurses to engage in actions that promotes social justice practices. The objectives included understanding the meaning of social justice, recognising the impact of social injustice on health, ascertaining the visibility of social justice learningin nurse education, and developing ideas for incorporating social justice practices in nurse education.
METHODS
Research methods were situated in critical interpretivism and constructivism grounded theory qualitative research design. Data was collected from semi-structured interviews with eleven student nurses and focus groups with eleven nurse educators, in a City of London nurse education institution. Data was analysed using Charmaz’s grounded theory initial, focused, and theoretical coding levels.
FINDINGS
Firstly, social justice was understood as conditions that fosters health experience. Secondly, social injustice was recognised as conditions that hinders health experience. Thirdly, social justice learning was found to be equivocal in nurse education. Lastly, it was discovered that frameworks can be used to incorporate social justice learning into nurse education.
DISCUSSION
I have created a framework on Awareness for Social Justice Action for the purpose of developing the critical student nurse for social justice awareness and action. This is my unique contribution to knowledge that reconcile educational theories with aspirations of research participants in the context of nurse education.
CONCLUSION
Doing the Professional Doctor of Education programme provided opportunities for shaping my research ideas. Systematic processing of these ideas was demonstrated throughout my research and contributed to my framework on promoting social justice nurse education to address persisting health inequities.