With the emergence of interest in politics as a human occupation in the occupational therapy profession, discussion is needed on whether this content should be taught to students in an entry-level programme and, if so, how. Duncan et al (2005) have discussed issues in the development of political literacy through service learning in a South African occupational therapy programme. Wood and colleagues (2005) have described how they uncovered the ethic of occupational justice as a subplot in their curriculum. However, the question remains, how do we include content on political practice in a traditional US occupational therapy curriculum that is already bursting at the seams?

If we take the definition of politics as ‘the relationships within a group or organization which allow particular people to have power over others’ (Cambridge Dictionaries Online 2006), we already educate our students in the politics of professional, community, health care and educational systems. However, in the USA, content is largely framed within the scope of the traditional medical or public school educational systems of practice (American Occupational Therapy Association 1998). Rarely do we provide educational information about political activities of daily living (pADL) outside of these established communities, nor do we provide opportunities for students outside these accepted areas to be advocates and agents of change within the political arena.

There are several inherent difficulties in the inclusion of content regarding political issues in the curriculum. First, pADLs are about groups and their interactions in larger environments rather than individuals’ ability to participate in targeted occupations. Second, we are reluctant to assist students in critiquing how the established medical and public education systems impact people’s lives. Third, while traditional occupational therapy educational programmes may advocate for the critiquing of the context of client occupation, the focus is usually on the family, work or school environments. Lastly, for students who may not have developed a political awareness, exploration of the political may be perceived as removed from their future roles as professionals. Thus, learning built on prior experience may require more foundation hours than are available. When teaching students with varied exposure to diverse world views, time is needed to enhance consciousness and without the time they may not be ready to explore these complexities. Yet, political dimensions are present in all basic and instrumental ADLs and significantly impact clients’ occupations. The diffuse and complex impact of pADLs challenges the traditional occupational therapy curriculum to incorporate them comprehensively.

The proposed framework for analysing politics in everyday living, using questions developed by Kronenberg and Pollard (2005) is a conceptual beginning in this endeavour and requires ongoing dialogue about its operationalization into service delivery and education. Therefore, this chapter examines the utility of these pADL questions from the perspective of a professional entry-level Master of Occupational Therapy (MOT) programme at a university in southern USA. A student clinical assignment in which the concepts of the pADL questions were introduced will be described.

The context is a capstone community project course in which second-year students must explore settings that do not employ occupational therapy personnel. Forty hours of immersion in the setting is required. Four students participated in a day centre for people experiencing homelessness and four students participated at a residential facility for children removed from their families. Students were given questions derived from the principles of occupational apartheid and occupational justice (Kronenberg & Pollard 2005) to consider before, during and after their immersion experience. The purpose was to guide the students to examine these environments from an occupational justice perspective and to discover ways to integrate content on pADLs into the curriculum. We will explore the following:

We offer our experiences and suggestions to further the discussion on the inclusion of content about political practice in the curriculum. The information presented below arises out of faculty-student discussions, the students’ community project papers and their oral presentations of their proposed programmes in their respective settings. The exact pADL questions suggested by Kronenberg and Pollard (2005) were not used but were modified to fit the community assignment of our students.