The role of professional education in promoting the dignity of older people

Abstract

This paper considers the education of social and health care professionals who work with and care for older people. It asks whether education can promote the dignity of older people, how this may be done, what factors may ease or impede the promotion of dignity within professional education, and what part education plays alongside other influences on care practices.Beginning with consideration of research on the nature of professional education, the paper reviews principles of professional education, cultures and methods of teaching and learning and processes of practical apprenticeship. The paper argues that there are a number of challenges to the promotion of dignity within professional education, for example, inconsistencies in development of professional values, curriculum contradictions such as those between education for management and for direct care of older people, the balance between theory and practice and education for practice under changing real‐world conditions.