Danish nursing and higher education

a study on the educational path of Danish nurses from the title of nurse/professional bachelor to research training/Ph.D.

Abstract

This article analyzes how nursing research has developed from 1998 to 2017. The study is based on K.A. Petersen's Bourdieu-inspired work from 1997. Through an examination of the subject matter of PhD theses written by students holding a bachelor’s degree in nursing, the theoretical positions adopted, and the relationship between applied theory and empirical evidence, the development is discussed: Have the ambitions of earlier generations within nursing science succeeded in establishing nursing science as an independent field?

The data consists of two parts: a self-collected qualitative dataset based on PhD theses from the period (N=230), and a specific extraction based on registry data from Statistics Denmark (N=351).

The results of the study indicate that the original ambitions have not been realized, as nurses, even as researchers, are still subordinated to the medical clinic dominated by doctors, just as has been the case with the basic education since the inception of the clinic. Conversely, within the field of nursing today, as in the rest of society, a considerable number of PhDs have been awarded. The distribution of topics studied by nurses has remained relatively consistent throughout the period, with one significant exception being the secondary healthcare sector, which has accounted for most of the expansion in the past 10 years. However, the question of nursing science itself does not seem to have attracted much attention.