The Relationship between Practitioners and Academics--Anti-Academic Discourse Voiced by Finnish Nurses

Overview & Synopsis

Nursing in Western countries has become increasingly more theoretical, and nurse education has been integrated more often with the higher education system. Historically, nursing has been viewed as a non-academic domain. Establishing Nursing Science (NS) in Finland in the 1970s has meant that the new discipline is defined as the core of nurse education and as the basis for all nursing practice. However, research has highlighted tensions facing practitioners due to the theorisation and academisation of education. This article presents the findings from a study in which the educational accounts of Finnish nurses and nurse students were explored. Research orientation is underpinned by the sociology of education, and educational accounts were approached through discourse analysis. The data for research are composed of opinion writings and Internet platform discussion threads. Themes such as academic education, NS and theory-practice gap in nursing came up frequently in the data.These educational accounts can be characterised as critical, and therefore, the way of talking was labelled as an "anti-academic discourse." We ask what this discourse is used for and discuss how to interpret it in the context of work arena and institutional education.