Developing a critical pedagogy approach to teaching on a mental health nursing degree programme

The relocation of nurse education into a higher education setting challenges the traditional focus of such education. As a practice discipline there is a requirement that students achieve a set of professional competencies to become a nurse. This is congruent with current higher education discourse of market principles and employability. Proponents of critical pedagogy challenge this discourse arguing that the proper focus of higher education should be the development of values and knowledge that enable graduates to participate in a democratic society. This conceptualisation of the purposes of higher education is congruent with the development of Abertay graduate attributes. Critical pedagogy offers a theoretical perspective to facilitate the development of these values and is adopted as an approach to teaching a module on the mental health nursing degree. A teaching strategy aiming to facilitate social relations of learning that support the development of criticality in students is adopted.