Att utbilda sig till sjuksköterska : Ett genusperspektiv på lärares och studenters beskrivningar av utbildningen

Sammanfattning: This study examines the subject of nursing in nursing education and how it is understoodby both male and female teachers and students respectively. Through the Care 77 reform nurse education was transformed from vocational training to university education. As a consequence the concept of nursing has been further theorised and developed. Of those who study, teach, research and write textbooks in nursing, the majority are women. Given this preponderance of women over men in nurse education, the aim of this study was to describe and understand from a gender perspective both students´ and teachers´ perceptions and understanding of nursing as a subject. The questions I attempt to answer are: 1) What is the relation between male and female teachers´ description of nursing as a specific subject? 2) What is the relation between male and female nursing students´ description of nursing as a specific subject? 3) Are there educational factors which facilitate a more balanced sex distribution or which render a more balanced sex distribution more difficult? Data have been gathered through interviews and questionnaires. The interview study included 20 participants and the inquiry study 32 participants. There were equal numbers of male and female, teachers and students respectively, at nine nursing university colleges covering Sweden as a whole. The analyses have been done from a gender perspective. The gender theory terms of Connell and Thurén have inspired the construction of a gender analysis model, which has been the practical tool of the analyses, including the terms gender symmetry, gender asymmetry, gender neutrality and gender instability. As an aid for interpretation to be able to understand individual meaningful units and the pattern of the text the terms separation, female subordination, work distribution, symbolic sex, separation, closeness, hegemonic masculinity and gender dizziness have been used. The result show that both teacher groups experience the academisation of nursing as a specific subject. Both student groups commented on a lack of corresponding between their theoretical and their clinical nursing studies. The theoretical contents of nursing as a specific subject has had little impact on clinical activity. Students suggested three main reasons for this lack of clinical relevance: perceived lack of time, the vague interest of nursing professional groups and the hegemonic position of other medical and technical professionals. Apart from professional nursing knowledge, students with a strong identity and actors with ability to face the challenges of establishing a new research area within the same domain as already established once, are required in order to bring about changes. The findings of this study show no evidence that male should be less suitable or have less interest in theoretical studies in nursing as a specific subject. They have, however, less interest in it in clinical studies, in favour of medical science and technology. Male students, for example, at an early stage of their studies, often choose their special focus on emergency nursing. In the continued education women students more than men students tend to hope for inservice education in their workplace. It is within the medical-technical domain, and not in nursing as a specific subject that both students groups state a need for continued learning. Circumstances that will influence the balance of sex distribution in studies and profession seem to be: men‚s exposure to work with patients´ and other nursing professional groups´ observance of their choice of profession; lack of co-operation with other nursing professional groups; a rigid social milieu; and men’s experience of difficulties in providing intimate body care, also including dialogue with patients and relatives. A comprehensive interpretation of the results is that the biased sex distribution may be an outcome of society´s attitudes to what is defined as female or male work.