# Exploring poems of intersectionality in the disorientation of interprofessional learning

## TL;DR

This paper uses poetic inquiry to explore how social identities affect health students' collaborative learning in rural South Africa.

## Contribution

The study introduces poetic inquiry and intersectionality to analyze disorienting interprofessional learning experiences in rural healthcare education.

## Key findings

- Themes like language, ethnicity, religion, and culture intersect with professional identities to influence learning.
- Students experienced disorientation in clinical and social contexts due to intersecting social identities.
- Using intersectionality can help educators address biases and structural power dynamics in training.

## Abstract

Exploring students’ interprofessional education experiences highlights the occurrence of hierarchy as a barrier to collaborative practice. Individuals are however influenced by the multiple social identities of themselves and others and not just professional hierarchy. Intersectionality offers a useful lens through which to understand the complex influences of students’ learning experiences. Using poetic inquiry, this paper explores the influence of intersectionality on health professional students’ interprofessional learning experiences on two rural training platforms in South Africa. Sixteen individual interviews with final-year undergraduate students from five different healthcare professions were conducted in 2022. An inductive narrative analysis of the data was undertaken and represented using ‘found poems’. Reflexive analysis of the data presented in poems was conducted with student participants, co-authors, and an independent qualitative researcher. Themes related to the intersection of language and ethnicity, religion and profession, culture and profession as well as professional discipline and being a student were extracted from the data. Participants demonstrated disorienting learning experiences in both the clinical and social context. Using intersectionality as a lens, we have gained insight into the sometimes-disorienting influence of students’ intersecting social identities during interprofessional learning on two rural training platforms. A nuanced understanding of how multiple social identities intersect to influence experiences could help educators mitigate student and educator biases and understand structural power dynamics in training environments. Transformative learning may be a way to introduce intersectionality into both interprofessional education and health professions education in general.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10459-025-10428-5.