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Academisation of nursing education in the Nordic Countries

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Abstract

Nursing Science represents a new academic discipline in the Nordic Countries. The article focuses on the academisation of nursing education and the development of nursing to a specific discipline in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. The education of nurses has developed within the national framework of each country, but not within a national vacuum. The theoretical framework is based on the sociology of the profession and methodological solutions lean on comparative and content analysis of text documents. This article argues that successful professional projects are not always primarily results of professional groups’ struggles. In the case of Nordic nurses the realisation of their academisation project in the 1970s and 1980s has been due to efforts of individual nurses and their associations as well as the guidance of international organisations. However, in the final analysis reforms in the higher education system have made possible the implementation of the academisation project.

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Notes

  1. I use the term nurse profession throughout the article, even though I am well aware that many profession-researchers use the term semi-profession when speaking about nurses’ occupational group as well as some researchers have given up using term profession. I am not interested in the question if nurses can be defined and called a profession or a semi-profession.

  2. Iceland is not included in the research. Icelandic nurses are a relatively small proportion of the Nordic nurse profession. They were trained in Denmark and Norway until 1930, and the further education of Icelandic nurses was carried out there until the 1970s. Therefore nursing education in Iceland is closely linked to the history of nursing education in Denmark and Norway. A practical reason to the exclusion of Iceland is the language: the study of nursing education in Iceland would have been entirely based on secondary research material.

    Nursing studies are currently offered by two Icelandic universities—University of Iceland and University of Akureyri. Both universities offer for year BA degree and MA degree in Nursing. The University of Iceland also offers PhD programme (Nursing in Iceland 2009).

  3. Although this article is not focused on the neighbouring professions in the field as the key context factor in academisation I argue—based on my original research—that the medical profession has had a twofold role in the establishment of Nursing Science in the Nordic Countries: it has both fostered and impeded it. My research brings out clearly that within the medical profession there have been those who have supported the efforts of nurses in their educational pursuits. There have also been those who have seen academisation as a threat (see more Laiho 2005). To interpret Abbot (1998), the polemics concerned jurisdiction. The medical profession considered that the nurse profession undermined traditional subordinate jurisdiction with their new academic merits. .

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  1. Department of Education, University of Turku, Assistentinkatu 5, Turku, 20014, Finland

    Anne Laiho

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Laiho, A. Academisation of nursing education in the Nordic Countries. High Educ 60, 641–656 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-010-9321-y

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