Social Justice in Health Professions Education

Health inequities are among the most urgent challenges in global healthcare, with severe consequences for morbidity, mortality, and quality of life. Addressing these inequities requires systemic change, starting with how we educate and support future health professionals. Embedding social justice into health professions education can develop practitioners with the cultural humility, structural competence, and advocacy skills to challenge inequity at its roots.

Central to this transformation is decolonising medical education: diversifying curricula, interrogating the socio-political contexts of knowledge production, addressing embedded inequities, and amplifying non-Western, Indigenous, and Global South perspectives. By centring social justice and decolonisation in health professions education, this collection seeks to inspire bold, evidence-informed, and practice-driven contributions that challenge the existing imbalance of power and offer pathways to lasting, systemic change in global health.

This Research Topic aims to explore how health professions education can serve as a vehicle for advancing social justice and equity, with a particular emphasis on decolonising curricula, challenging student exclusion, and dismantling systemic bias in healthcare and healthcare education. By bringing together diverse perspectives from academics, practitioners, students, and community stakeholders, we seek to stimulate critical discussion, showcase innovative practices, and inspire systemic change. We particularly welcome submissions from the Global South, underrepresented communities, and collaborative works between students and academics.

We welcome contributions across a range of article types, including original research, reviews, case studies, perspectives, policy briefs, and reflective pieces – please also see the author guidelines. Submissions may focus on a specific community of practice (such as a specific region, country, or individual institution) or may focus on issues that are international or cross-disciplinary. Potential areas of interest include, but are not limited to:

• Curricular innovations that integrate social justice, anti-racism, and equity principles.

• Analyses of challenges or barriers to implementing socially-just health profession education.

• The effects of unequal education in the health professions (for example, awarding gaps), on students, patients, or communities of practice.

• Strategies to address inequities in healthcare professions education, including widening participation and EDI strategies.

• Strategies for decolonising health professions education, such as:
o Incorporating Indigenous and Global South health knowledge systems.
o Critically analysing historical narratives in medical education, addressing colonial legacies and celebrating historical advances in health in non-western cultures.
o Diversifying reading lists and authorship to include non-Western and underrepresented scholars.
o Embedding teaching on the socio-political context of medical knowledge production, as well as decolonised teaching on the history of medicine.

• Pedagogical approaches that foster structural competence, cultural safety, and critical consciousness.

• Student-led initiatives and activism addressing health inequities and inequities faced by staff and students.

• Development of initiatives that create brave spaces for difficult conversations, for both students and staff.

• Global South perspectives on embedding social justice in professional training.

• Evaluation of interventions aimed at reducing bias in clinical teaching and assessment, particularly those that create inclusive learning environments.

• Community–academic partnerships to co-design socially responsive curricula, e.g. embedding principles of service learning.

• Insight into policy reforms and institutional strategies that support (or hinder) equity-driven education.

• Application of novel technologies to support the delivery of equitable health professions education.

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Case Report
• Clinical Trial
• Community Case Study
• Curriculum, Instruction, and Pedagogy
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• FAIR² DATA Direct Submission
• ... View all formats

Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.

Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Case Report
• Clinical Trial
• Community Case Study
• Curriculum, Instruction, and Pedagogy
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• FAIR² DATA Direct Submission
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Policy and Practice Reviews
• Policy Brief
• Review
• Study Protocol
• Systematic Review
• Technology and Code

Keywords: inequity, social justice, health professions education, medical education, medical knowledge, structural competence, humility, decolonization, Global South, Indigenous, non-Western, knowledge systems, socio-political context, widening participation, equity, diversity, inclusion

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.