Collaborative education and social stereotypes.

The purpose of this paper is to present results from a two-year collaborative education project conducted with people with a serious mental illness and senior undergraduate students of nursing at the Centre for Mental Health Nursing Research at Queensland University of Technology. The study was funded by the Australian Commonwealth Government and was completed in June 1998. The results suggest that collaborative education is an effective means for breaking down social stereotypical thinking about people with a mental illness. A similar finding with respect to the stigmatization of undergraduates supports this hypothesis. Implications for psychiatric rehabilitation and the undergraduate education of students of nursing are explored.