Politics in the Classroom

Nursing and midwifery is, in the UK, regulated by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC). Regulatory duties include establishing standards for education, and from January 2019, new educational programmes will be approved against standards detailed in the document Future nurse: Standards of proficiency for registered nurses (NMC, 2019 – hereafter ‘the standards’). This publication lists “the knowledge and skills that registered nurses must demonstrate when caring for people” (ibid, p.3); and from September 2020, registration (licence) will require the successful completion of programmes that have been ratified against these standards. The importance of this document in a UK context cannot be understated. However, less parochially, learning outcomes contained in section 7 of the standards raise questions that require educator attention whenever politically sensitive topics (broadly conceived) are discussed. This study explores these questions insofar as they relate to the stance (neutrality or partisanship) that educators adopt in politicised discussion, and the management of student speech/expression. Pratt, Boll and Collins’ (2007) paper Towards a plurality of perspectives for nurse educators is recruited to structure argument.