Critical consciousness development: a systematic review of empirical studies

Resistance for Disrupting Inequities and Fostering Social Justice in Nursing: A Discussion

AIMS

The purpose of this paper is to provide a conceptual overview of resistance and argue for the need to embrace resistance as a part of nurses' professional repertoire for disrupting inequities and fostering social justice in both nursing education and practice.

DESIGN

Discursive article.

DATA SOURCES

Published peer reviewed literature on 'resistance' and 'professional resistance' in nursing, medicine, social work and other allied health care professions.

RESULTS

Enhancing critical consciousness and engaging in intersectional collaboration are promising strategies to embrace resistance for collective action towards disrupting inequities and injustices in nursing education and practice.

CONCLUSION

Embracing and legitimising resistance in everyday individual and social interactions in educational and practice settings is instrumental to fostering social justice in nursing. Without resistance, nurses may risk jeopardising enactment of moral and ethical responsibilities and suppressing their professional values of caring and compassion.

IMPLICATIONS FOR THE PROFESSION AND/OR PATIENT CARE

Nurses can embrace resistance in practice to counteract social injustice and promote diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging and antiracism in clinical and educational settings.

IMPACT

Research demonstrated that perceived and real inequities and injustices are common in nursing in the form of individual and structural racism, sex and gender discrimination, power imbalances and incivility. Nurses' engagement in resistance and increased capacity to resist injustices and incivilities can play an instrumental role in disrupting professional inequities in clinical practice and education.

PATIENT AND PUBLIC CONTRIBUTION

There was no patient or public involvement in the design or writing of this discursive article.

Social determinants of health: critical consciousness as the core to collective impact

Social determinants of health have become widely recognized as important to overall health. Many areas of social determinants of health are growing from policy to reimbursement to the connecting of health and social care. The efforts around social determinants of health require reflection and awareness of structural issues. The work of Paulo Freire in critical consciousness provides guidance for how to engage in social determinants of health efforts. This manuscript offers a summary of the social determinants of health under the guidance of critical consciousness to build skills and interactions to promote social care to build toward health equity.

Translating critical reflection into collective action: The mediating role of Asian American racial identity ideological values

Throughout U.S. history, Asian Americans engaged in various forms of collective action to challenge systems of oppression. Despite this, few studies challenge the stereotype that Asian Americans are apolitical and uninterested in collective action and focus on psychological correlates of Asian Americans' collective action. Collective action may be motivated by critical reflection on racism and inequality, which may induce shifts in racial identity ideological values that lead Asian Americans to align with minoritized groups. The current study examines whether Asian American racial identity ideological values-specifically, Asian American Unity, Interracial Solidarity, and Transnational Critical Consciousness-help explain why critical reflection is linked to collective action among Asian Americans. Multiple mediation analyses suggested that, among Asian American college students in the Southwest United States (N = 272), beliefs about Interracial Solidarity and Asian American Unity mediated the relationship between critical reflection (i.e., Critical Reflection on Racism and Perceived Inequality) and collective action (i.e., Support for Black Lives Matter and Sociopolitical Participation). Transnational Critical Consciousness did not mediate the relationship between critical reflection and collective action. This study highlights how Asian American unity and interracial solidarity beliefs underlie Asian Americans' critical reflection and collective action.