Contested Practice: Political Activism in Nursing and Implications for Nursing Education

Abstract

Canadian nurses have a social mandate to address health inequities for the populations they serve, as well as to speak out on professional and broader social issues. Although Canadian nursing education supports the role of nurses as advocates for social justice and leadership for health care reform, little is known about how nurse educators understand activism and how this translates in the classroom. A comparative life history study using purposeful sampling and a critical feminist lens was undertaken to explore political activism in nursing and how nurse educators foster political practice among their students. Findings from interviews and focus groups with 26 Ontario nurse educators and nursing students suggested that neoliberal dynamics in both the practice setting and in higher education have constrained nurses' activist practice and favour a technical rational approach to nursing education. Implications and strategies to inspire political action in nursing education are discussed.

Using ways of knowing in nursing to develop educational strategies that support knowledge mobilization

“…However, to date nurses have not committed to this in great numbers 70 and educators are ambivalent or unsure how to go about supporting students' development in this context. 71 There are many examples related to pediatric pain management affected by injustice, inequality, political and policy decisions and human rights. Nurses' voice in this context could, and many argue should, be influential.…”

Nurses’ and midwives’ perspectives on participation in national policy development, review and reforms in Ghana: A qualitative study

“…This challenge is achievable if nurses can exhibit negotiable skills, heightened by personal attributes such as persistence, fortitude, willpower, and resilience. Unfortunately, in separates studies, Buck-McFadyen and colleagues, and MacLellan et al have reported the lack of negotiable skills among nurses which generally laid nurses back in political discourse [60,61]. This could be due to the approach of training given to nurses in the Ghanaian context which predisposes them to timidity and unassertiveness.…”

The relevance of Xenophon’s Anabasis and Plato’s Meno to nursing

“…Nevertheless, I choose Anabasis not only for its aesthetic or literary character (“Xenophon's Anabasis seems today to be regarded universally as his most beautiful book,” Strauss, 1986) but also because it is the work in which the author shows with greater clarity his choice of political affairs, of a practical life. Though young nursing students are maybe not sure about the political character of the nursing profession, they can soon learn how socio‐political constraints have a great influence on their nursing work (Buck‐McFadyen & MacDonnell, 2017).…”