[School nurses: representations and practices in health education]

A survey of nurses (n = 188) from the National Education for the Academies of Lyon and Clermont-Ferrand highlights the heterogeneity of their representations and professional practices. These results underline the link between individual conceptions and the nature of the practices being used, and they show the impact of training and experience acquired in the school setting with respect to various practices and the difficulties they encounter in the fulfillment of their objectives as school nurses. The specificity of the school nurse profession is not necessarily solely related to the provision of care, but rather it is more accurately articulated around a set of educational tasks and goals, without of course being in a competitive position with the educational disciplines. This radical change in the fundamental core of the professional mission underlies the need to define a new professionalism and develop specific training tailored to the school setting and its distinctive features.