Working in the Gorse: Criticality in Rehabilitation Healthcare Education in Aotearoa|New Zealand

Abstract

Globally, the dominant forms of rehabilitation healthcare education take a positivistic, scientific approach that views the body mechanistically, disability as a deficit, and Western worldviews as superior to others. However, privileging these approaches occludes other important ways of understanding bodies, health, and rehabilitation. In response to these limited yet pervasive ways of constructing our disciplines, we urge rehabilitation healthcare educators to enact “criticality.” A critical perspective helps students think critically about their learning at a political and sociocultural level. As evidence of how this criticality opens new and valuable avenues for rehabilitation healthcare education, we point to existing research in global health along with our own experiences attempting–and often struggling–to enact criticality in our teaching at the tertiary level in Aotearoa |New Zealand.