2024/10/10 by Gayle Restall · 1 citation
Health Professions · Medicine · Psychology · #Cerebral Palsy and Movement Disorders #Family and Disability Support Research #Occupational Therapy Practice and Research
paper · pdf · doi:10.1177/00084174241277950
crossref issued 2024/10/10 · crossref published 2024/10/10 · crossref published-online 2024/10/10 · openalex publication_date 2024/10/10 · crossref created 2024/10/10 · crossref published-print 2024/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · crossref deposited 2026/04/28 · crossref indexed 2026/07/31 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31
[Formula: see text] Background. Societal structures and systems compel occupational therapists, at times, to behave in ways that perpetuate injustices. Justice theorists have described how Global North social structures have created the conditions for oppression of some groups while enabling additional groups to have unearned privileges. Mobilizing critical occupational therapy praxis is an essential response. Purpose. This lecture addresses three questions: why should occupational therapists integrate structural justice, equity, and rights into their everyday practices?; what gives occupational therapy the potential to be a structural justice-, equity-, and rights-oriented profession?; and, how can occupational therapy mobilize critical praxis that will promote structural justice, equity, and rights? Key issues. Occupational therapy's embeddedness in structures of injustice and therapists’ obligations to integrate justice, equity, and rights into their everyday practices are increasingly evident. A focus on occupational participation, growing critical consciousness, socially transformative practices, and capacity for collective action position occupational therapy to be a structural justice-oriented profession. Critical reflexivity and reflection; justice-, equity-, and rights-based lenses; and acts of resistance and disobedience to oppressive systems can help mobilize critical praxis. Implications. Occupational therapists have individual and collective opportunities for exercising the moral imagination and moral courage to mobilize critical occupational therapy praxis.