“Planting the seeds”: A Transformative Qualitative Study on the Impact of the “Principles of Belonging in Public Health” Pilot Workshop for Graduate Students in the Health Sciences

Anti-oppression refers to principles and practices that challenge existing oppressive structures. Training in anti-oppression is not universally offered in population health graduate programs in Canada, and there are few formal qualitative evaluations on students’ perceptions of existing trainings in the literature. Therefore, the objectives of this study were to evaluate the impact as well as students’ perceptions of a training on concepts related to identity, power, and privilege within the McGill School of Population and Global Health (SPGH) context. A team of students, faculty, and staff designed and implemented a voluntary workshop on anti-oppressive practices for graduate students enrolled in SPGH programs in 2023. We used a qualitative, participatory action design within a transformative paradigm to evaluate the workshop. Attendees were invited to participate in the study’s focus groups or one-on-one interviews. Qualitative data was analyzed through thematic analysis using NVivo 12. Of the 37 workshop attendees, 10 students participated in the study. We conducted four focus groups and one one-on-one interview. Participant perspectives were divided into the themes of relevance, safety and social change, collectivity, impact, and participant-driven development of equity training under the pillars of belonging, care, growth, and sustainability. Students found the training effective at improving interpersonal skills. However, they expected more content about addressing systemic forms of oppression within the population health field. The workshop was implemented effectively and successfully established a safe environment for learning. Additionally, this study provides a framework to design, develop, and evaluate anti-oppression workshops in population health education settings using a garden metaphor and demonstrates how the framework can be implemented. Further research and trainings should consider having anti-oppressive content more relevant to the population health field.