Lessons Learned from Teaching Nursing Students about Equality, Equity, Human Rights, and Forced Migration through Roleplay in an Inclusive Classroom

Abstract

Inclusive education, sustainable development, and core nursing values all share common goals of promoting diversity, equity, social justice, and inclusion. However, prevailing norms of exclusion may shape health systems and healthcare workers’ attitudes and threaten inclusive patient care. Ongoing global conflicts and violence resulting in growing patient diversity in terms of ethnicity and migration status have led to questions regarding healthcare systems’ preparedness for inclusive nursing. Diversity-rich classrooms and collaborative learning methods, like role play, are inclusive strategies that may be useful in nursing education. The purpose of this paper is to present lessons learned from incorporating role play about forced migration in inclusive nursing classrooms. Various diversity-rich nursing student groups participated in a two-hour role play on forced migration facilitated by youth volunteers from the Swedish Red Cross Society between 2017 and 2019. This study is based on the amplified analysis of qualitative data materials, in the form of notes and summarized feedbacks, obtained from evaluating the role play as a teaching-learning activity. Three themes were identified, specifically, knowledge exchange, existential reflections, and empathy evoked. Findings suggest that working collaboratively in an inclusive environment may improve nursing students’ understanding of the vulnerabilities created by forced migration and to be better prepared for promoting social justice for this group in health care settings.