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Academic Nursing: An Epitome of a Conflict-Prone Domain

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Paradoxes of Conflicts

Part of the book series: Logic, Argumentation & Reasoning ((LARI,volume 12))

Abstract

Since the 1960s, many profession-oriented domains such as nursing, social work and education have entered universities. The article focuses on a controversy in one profession-oriented discipline, nursing science during the 1990s. The aim is to understand the discipline and to highlight its characteristics in a controversy situation. The article is rooted in science and technology studies which have focused on controversies in science. The article first discusses what nursing science was like as an arena of controversy and what made it controversy-prone in the 1990s. It then analyses which actors took part in the controversy in this profession-oriented discipline, and what the different actors’ goals were for nursing science. The aim is to understand the discipline and to highlight its characteristics in a controversy situation. In this way, the article produces understanding of this and other profession-oriented disciplines in the academic setting.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Throughout the article I use the concept ‘nursing science’, because the Finnish community of nursing scholars use this term for their discipline.

  2. 2.

    For a full review of the controversy research tradition in science and technology studies, see Taylor (1996), Gieryn (1995, 1999) and Vuolanto (2013, 17–33).

  3. 3.

    For more on the concept of boundary work, see Vuolanto (2015).

  4. 4.

    For more examples, see Lamont and Molnár (2002, 179–180).

  5. 5.

    In more detail, these are introduced in Vuolanto (2013, 39).

  6. 6.

    These are detailed in Vuolanto (2013, 39–40).

  7. 7.

    For the development of nursing science in the Nordic countries see Laiho (2010), and for Finland in particular see Laiho (2012), Laiho and Ruoholinna (2013), Råholm et al. (2010).

  8. 8.

    A similar use of the concept ‘emerging field’ is made by Beddoes (2014) in relation to the discipline of engineering education.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research Centre for Knowledge, Science, Technology and Innovation Studies, University of Tampere, Kanslerinrinne 1, 33014, Tampere, Finland

    Pia Vuolanto

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  1. Pia Vuolanto
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Correspondence to Pia Vuolanto .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici, Università del Salento, Lecce, Italy

    Giovanni Scarafile

  2. Department of Philosophy, University of Tel-Aviv, Tel Aviv, Israel

    Leah Gruenpeter Gold

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Vuolanto, P. (2016). Academic Nursing: An Epitome of a Conflict-Prone Domain. In: Scarafile, G., Gruenpeter Gold, L. (eds) Paradoxes of Conflicts. Logic, Argumentation & Reasoning, vol 12. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-41978-7_9

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