Learner Milestones to Guide Decolonial Global Health Education

Abstract

The current movement to 'decolonize' global health aims to both dismantle colonial frameworks that perpetuate inequity and racism, as well as to rebuild and uplift structures and systems that celebrate indigeneity. However, it is critical to recognize that teaching decoloniality within global health education is more than just the acknowledgement that there are key paradigms missing from current global health education. It is imperative to have a methodology to hold ourselves and our learners accountable to progress in practices and ideals that promote equity-based praxis. In this paper, we propose the creation of a tool to assess learner levels and their progression over time in both recognizing the impacts of colonialism and acting to transform their own global health praxis towards equity and decoloniality.

Theories, models, and best practices for decolonizing global health through experiential learning

“…Three articles dealt specifically with short-term global health educational experiences (Myers and Fredrick, 2017;Wood and Jobe, 2020;Hawks, 2021), while others focused on contextual factors needed to support the development of global health study abroad experiences, such as curriculum and general global health education (Pentecost et al, 2018;Naidu, 2021;Wong et al, 2021;Ratner et al, 2022), faculty development (Behari-Leak et al, 2021;Hawks, 2021;Naidu, 2021), research practices (Keikelame and Swartz, 2019;Lawrence and Hirsch, 2020), and partner relationships (Kulesa and Brantuo, 2021;Prasad et al, 2022).…”

“…Ten articles targeted one or more specific intervention or strategy. Myers and Fredrick (2017), Wood and Jobe (2020), Hawks (2021), andRatner et al (2022) all applied high impact educational learning experiences to promote decolonization principles in students. Pentecost et al (2018), Behari-Leak et al (2021, Hawks (2021), Naidu (2021), and Prasad et al (2022) similarly promote specific curriculum and design interventions.…”

“…Some authors FIGURE 1 PRISMA diagram of systematic review. Hawks et al 10.3389/feduc.2023.1215342 Frontiers in Education 04 frontiersin.org directly referred to TLT (Wood and Jobe, 2020;Hawks, 2021), while other frameworks included very similar elements (Myers and Fredrick, 2017;Ratner et al, 2022), particularly disorienting dilemmas, critical reflection, and integration and action based on new perspectives. These steps each help students progress along the path from being unaware of colonial legacies to becoming agents of decolonization.…”

“…The specific goal of this article is to explore efforts to design short term experiential learning programs (e.g., faculty led study abroad programs) in ways that mesh with a coherent framework, are based on sound theory, and align well with the aims of decolonizing global health (Prasad et al, 2022;Ratner et al, 2022). In doing so, we will consider input from relevant articles dealing with theory, methods, models, frameworks, and assessments related to best practices in short-term experiential education abroad, while at the same time aligning identified best practices with the aims for decolonizing public health.…”

Talk the talk and walk the walk: a novel training for medical students to promote decoloniality in global health

“…As we look to expand the audience, first to all students conducting a GHSP, and eventually to all medical students engaged in any global health activity, it will be important to assess whether it has a similar impact and effectiveness. Finally, we do not know how knowledge and ability to discuss key concepts in global health decoloniality correlate with and translate into true decolonial praxis in global health (Ratner et al, 2022). It will be important to develop metrics to not only assess student knowledge, insight, and understanding but also how the course impacts decoloniality behaviors and practices by students in the field.…”