Motivation

Higher education institutions have changed from institutions of society into institutions in society, collaborating with other institutions and providing knowledge on contemporary social issues (Kwo et al., 2004). Colleges and universities with nurse educa tional programmes are integrating perspectives of social values and critical thinking in their educations and putting effort into how different sets of skills, such as social skills, could develop nursing students nursing practice. All in the strive to educate nursing students towards a sustainable society. Due to the fusion of social values into nursing educations, this study had the focal point of studying a specific campus-based clinical learning environment (CBCLE) that had implemented norm-critical perspectives in their educational composition.

Research aim

Therefore, the research aim of this study was to describe and explore the design and implementation of a CBCLE with a norm-critical perspective within a nurse education programme. 

Results

result of this study shows that during the design and implementation of the norm -critical perspective at the CBCLE three prominent themes were the driving force during the construction of the CBCLE. The first theme centres around that the studied nursing program had the objective to educate nursing students beyond traditional nursing education. The second theme, highlights that norm-criticism was implemented in partnership with society. The last theme dwells on that the perspective of norm-criticism implied an educative ambiguity for the CBCLE. Further, this study concludes that during the construction of the CBCLE the perspective of work -integrated learning framed the pedagogical process of implementation, which resulted in that novel layers of the conc ept of learning became relevant, opening up for other pedagogical perspectives to be aggregated. At the CBCLE the perspective of norm-criticism was aggregated and merged with the perspective of work-integrated learning, resulting in that social skills for nursing were emphasized and incorporated within the education at the learning environment. However, the perspective of norm-criticism entailed an ambiguity withing the studied institution because the non-normative approach of composing a CBCLE. The perspective of norm-criticism was elevated from an awareness level to nursing practice, containing social skills, and promoting emancipatory nursing. Moreover, the implementation of norm-criticism at the CBCLE also entailed an educative institutional hesitation due its proximity to politics. Further, by integrating the perspectives of work -integrated learning and norm-criticism, as the studied CBCLE’s, also implicates that the notion of work-integrated educational environments for sustainable societies should be discussed in the future. The result of this study is going to be included in a compilation dissertation consisting of four studies.

Research topic

Research has indicated that the Swedish healthcare is not equal (Dahlgren & Pelling, 2020; Friberg, 2018). To achieve society’s demand on providing an equal healthcare nursing educations ought to educate professional nurses that are able to deliver a sustainable, person-centered, and equal nursing care. In the strive to educate professional nurses, nursing education should discuss and illuminate power structures and other societal structures that mirror a society’s diverse nature (Kraft et al., 2017). Additionally, the education that students in higher education are presented with has also to intertwine theory and practice, empower students to reflect about their own learning processes, and ‘teach’ students to use knowledge from several independent sources in the educational endeavor to evolve work-ready students (Cooper et al., 2010; Zegwaard et al., 2017). This study describes and explores the design and implementation of norm-critical perspectives within a campus-based clinical learning environment. The perspective of norm-criticism originates from anti-oppressive, queer, and feminist pedagogies. Norm-criticism uses reflective learning as a pedagogical tool to problematise and reveal how the concept of normality can impact individuals that are perceived as the “other”. A core concept of norm-criticism is not on a focus or a scrutiny of the “other”, rather on the reflective learners understanding of inequalities and how inequalities can be challenged for more equal society (Isaksson et al., 2017; Tengelin et al., 2019; Bengtsson & Bolander, 2020). In nursing education, learning practical nursing is central and learning environments for this purpose have been arranged in different ways (Ewertsson et al., 2015). One way of organizing clinical learning environments are in the so called skills laboratories, clinical simulation centres (Abrandt Dahlgren et al., 2016; Msosa et al., 2021) or campus-based clinical learning environments. Research that focusses on exploring the perspectives of how different pedagogics are combined, such as work-integrated learning and norm-critical pedagogics, within campus-based clinical learning environments is non-existing or at least scant. 

Context and methodological perspectives 

The context of this study was a specific clinical learning environment for nursing education within a higher educational institution in a midsized Swedish town. Due to the spatial contextual aspect of the research subject and the explorative nature of the study, a qualitative case study design was chosen to approach the research aim at hand. The data of this study was comprised of two datasets: 7 qualitative semi-structured interviews with key informants, and 64 documents acquired at the archive of the studied university-college. A 6- step Reflective thematic analysis, inspired by Braun and Clarke (2022), was used to analyze the data and three themes were generated during the process. Further on, this study is currently being reviewed by “Advances in Nursing Science”. This is the first study of four in a compilation dissertation. 

Relevance and Societal impact 

Hopefully this study is going to contribute to the educative research community’s’ body of knowledge by highlighting the perspectives of work-integrated learning and norm-critical perspectives within the context of nursing education. It might also be an example to other educational organizations when planning for remodeling educational environments that would like to integrate the perspectives of diversity and equality within their educational structure. At a societal level the relevance of this study might consolidate that sustainable and equal nursing care is a natural characteristic in the care that the future professional nurse will provide.