Overcoming barriers to educational mobility in nursing

A shift in locus of responsibility from the individual to a program for facilitation of educational mobility in nursing calls for an explication and eradication of artificial barriers to such mobility. Drawing upon and extending the analysis found in the educational literature, this articles explores issues such as program autonomy, pedagogical assumptions about the nature of learning, adherence to questionable technical-professional distinctions, blindness to cultural-class differences, and employer practices as socially constructed barriers to educational mobility. The author argues that recognition of these barriers is a critical first step in exposing underlying motives restricting mobility. This article invites the nursing community, and in particular the nursing education community, to come to terms with their role in perpetuating barriers to educational mobility.