Teaching age and discrimination: a life course perspective

Age discrimination in health and social care is a universal issue with significant potential ramifications for practice, and one which should be explicitly addressed in health and social care pre-registration education. However, developing teaching and learning strategies to effectively address this subject is complex given that implicit/indirect discrimination based upon tacit beliefs and assumptions, is problematic and difficult to tackle. This paper discusses the importance of teaching age and discrimination to student nurses in the context of the development of a novel approach to this aspect of education from a life course perspective. This discussion is based personal and professional reflections of the authors on the delivery of the teaching session over a number of years with approximately 500 student mental health nurses to date. The emerging themes of this are reported here and their implications for education and practice discussed. Exploring age and discrimination in relation to children and young people and older people in particular has enabled student nurses to explore the concept as one which requires critical reflection. This promotes awareness of usually unexamined personal attitudes in relation to age in order to enhance the potential for good experiences of health services for all people in need of them.