Community as the teacher on issues of social responsibility, substance use, and queer health in dental education

INTRODUCTION: In order to foster dental and dental hygiene practices that are inclusive, sensitive to diversity, equitable, and without prejudice, a call to broadly teach cultural diversity within dental and dental hygiene education has been made. The research question of this study was “to what extent can an interactive and open dialogue about substance use, queer health, and social responsibility foster transformative learning?” METHODS: A collaborative and interdisciplinary project engaged the community as a teacher over the Summer and Fall of 2019 to address issues of substance use, queer health, and social responsibility and was delivered to 55 first-year undergraduate dental and 23 third-year dental hygiene students over three educational sessions. Dental and dental hygiene students were asked to reflect, in writing, on each session using between 200 and 400 words. Textual information from students’ self-reflections and from the community’s feedback were analyzed thematically for content (e.g., codes and themes). RESULTS: In total, 128 written reflections–for an average of 42 reflections per session–were gathered and analyzed interactively by the authors. Three major themes emerged: feeling privileged, breaking stereotypes, and coalescing learning. Feedback from the participating community members highlighted changes to be implemented in these sessions in the future, including more opportunities for small group activities in class. CONCLUSIONS: The three major themes that emerged from the thematic analysis of the self-reflections and community member feedback (feeling privileged, breaking stereotypes, and coalescing leaning) further highlighted the impact of community-driven curricula on students’ learning in regard to substance use, queer health, and social responsibility. Further work is critical to understand the impact of such a pedagogy on students’ practices once they leave their undergraduate programs.