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Published on: June 21, 2010
Governmentality, student autonomy and nurse education
Chris Darbyshire1, Valerie E M Fleming
1Chris School of Nursing, Midwifery, and Community Health, Glasgow Caledonian University, UK. c.darbyshire@gcal.ac.uk
Journal of Advanced Nursing
|April 9, 2008
Summary
Governmental practices in nurse education govern student behavior through control and self-supervision, creating tension between empowerment goals and professional demands. This normalization produces autonomous learners within a system of professional outcomes.
Area of Science:
- Nursing Education
- Educational Governance
- Discourse Analysis
Background:
- International nurse education influenced by autonomy-promoting theories since the 1980s.
- Curriculum models advocate transformative approaches for emancipation, social equity, and inclusion.
- Limited critical research exists on governing student behavior in this context.
Purpose of the Study:
- To explore governmental practices in nurse education.
- To critically analyze how student behavior is governed within educational settings.
Main Methods:
- Discourse analytic study conducted from 2000-2004.
- Interviews with 30 purposively sampled students and teachers in a UK university.
- Analysis of course curriculum and student handbook data.
Main Results:
- Identified two governing practices: control and technologies of the self.
- Governing practices create tension between empowerment discourse and educational practices.
- Students become their own supervisors through normalization and disciplinary strategies.
Conclusions:
- Tensions between professional outcomes and student autonomy remain unresolved.
- Educational practice normalizes students into autonomous learners.
- Discourses of empowerment and professional behavior simultaneously govern nursing students.
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