Etablering av barnesykepleieutdannelse i Bergen: En praxeologisk studie

Abstract

This master's project began with a curiosity about why the child nursing education program was established in Bergen in 1996. The project aims to understand and explain the social and cultural frameworks and conditions that underpinned the establishment of the education program at that time. The project goes back 20 years before the establishment in 1996 and is a historical analysis of the past to gain understanding and clarity of the underlying and more hidden aspects of the process of establishing a child nursing education program in Bergen. The overall research question that the study seeks to answer is: "What social and cultural frameworks and conditions may have underpinned the establishment of child nursing education in Bergen in 1996?" The study is based on the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu's praxeological theory of science and is based on written empirical data from the journal "Sykepleien" the Norwegian Nurses Association, and interviews with three informants who engaged in the establishment of the education program in separate ways or have knowledge of this process. Bourdieu's practice theory with the concepts of social spaces and fields, doxa, habitus is used as a background to understand social practices and answer the research question. The study shows that there were various elements that contributed to the establishment of child nursing education in Bergen in 1996. An increasing understanding of the need for more competence and specialized nursing for children admitted to hospitals developed due to increased knowledge about children's special needs that differ from adults. This, together with a formidable medical development that resulted in increased complexity and medical technology, highlighted the need for more competence among nurses. The Norwegian Nurses Association actively worked to establish child nursing education in all regions of Norway, and local drivers and initiatives were important for the establishment of the education program in Bergen in 1996.