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Accepted Paper:

The irony of teaching social determinants  
Ann Taylor (University of Newcastle)

Paper short abstract:

Explores the complexities of teaching students from a wide range of backgrounds about experiences of 'marginalisation' and the paradox of failing students who cannot describe their own exclusion in sufficiently academic terms.

Paper long abstract:

A progressive teaching agenda derived from World Health Organisation research on the social determinants of health and set against a background of the Rudd government's agenda on health raises questions about the experiences of teaching and learning for nursing students from a wide range of educational backgrounds. Sociologists and anthropologists present diversity and disadvantage with the humanist agenda of provoking empathy and underpinning future patient centred practice. They are teaching about experiences shared by many in the audience who have enrolled with the intention of changing their circumstances. This paper reflects on the experience of addressing students about their own life experience and questions the extent to which this curriculum addresses or reinforces marginality. It also raises the discomfort of reinforcing the moral superiority of privileged students; in popular culture, those examining such material may be accused of indulging in 'poverty porn'. The final irony is that privileged students are more able to express their understandings of marginalisation in elaborated code while students who cannot describe their own experience in this way risk failure.

Panel Med01
(Un)healthy systems: moral terrains of health equity
  Session 1