Transformative learning: Global approaches to nurse education

All across the world nurses work in complex healthcare systems, based not only on medical treatment and cure, but also on enabling individuals and communities to adapt to their health issues and engage in more effective self and community care. Students of nursing about to practice in these complex environments need to have a strong nursing identity: one that differentiates itself from other health disciplines, so that they can work skillfully, strategically, and collaboratively with patients and colleagues, and also so that they can rethink problems affecting their nursing work with vision and creativity. There are many modes of teaching and learning that can prepare students for the world of nursing, including narrative pedagogy, feminist pedagogy, and structural competence. An overarching term for these pedagogies is transformative learning (TL). TL is defined as learning experiences in which students’ assumptions, biases, or lack of knowledge, which impede productive clinician–patient relationships, are revealed and where new ways of thinking and relating, that are more liberal, respectful, and empowering, are developed – or transformed (McAllister, 2012a). There is wide variation in approaches, but the common features in this learning are that it engages students in reflection on current and taken-for-granted practices, and discussion of alternatives to become a catalyst for change. The aim of this chapter is to argue the need for TL approaches, outline global health inequities about which nurses could be playing a more active role, explain approaches to transformational teaching and learning, and show examples of TL in action.