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Student nurses' construction of occupational socialisation.
Sociology of Health & Illness
|June 9, 1984
Summary
This study on British nurse training reveals that students learn to navigate, not adopt, professional or service-oriented nursing roles. This organizational compromise may foster a transient approach and reduce commitment to the nursing profession.
Area of Science:
- Sociology of Professions
- Healthcare Education
- Nursing Studies
Background:
- Occupational socialization is crucial for understanding professional identity formation.
- Nursing, as an occupation, faces challenges in integrating educational ideals with practical service demands.
Purpose of the Study:
- To examine the occupational socialization process of British nurses.
- To analyze how nursing students navigate conflicting professional and service-oriented expectations during training.
Main Methods:
- Qualitative study utilizing informal interviews with 40 nursing students.
- Application of Bucher and Strauss's segmentation theory to analyze nursing practice.
Main Results:
- Nursing students do not fully internalize either the 'professional' educational model or the 'service' work model.
- Students develop a pragmatic ability to discern and adapt to the appropriate nursing approach based on context.
- The training structure, balancing college education and clinical placements, exposes students to both segments, reinforcing this adaptive learning.
Conclusions:
- The current organization of nurse training, characterized by a compromise between educational and service segments, inadvertently cultivates a transient approach to nursing.
- This adaptive strategy may implicitly discourage long-term commitment to the nursing profession.
- Rethinking training structures is essential to foster deeper professional commitment in nurses.