Emancipatory pedagogy in nursing education: A dialectical analysi

Over the past decade there has been a call, by some nurse educators, for a new paradigm in nursing education--one which will liberate teachers and students of nursing from the authoritarian restraints of behaviorist models of nursing education. In this study, such a paradigm was termed emancipatory pedagogy. While numerous conceptions of emancipatory pedagogy in nursing education have been set forth in the published nursing literature, rarely have nurse educators engaged in debate with respect to them. As a result, the discourse related to it is diverse and fragmented.;The purpose of this study was to render the diversity of opinions regarding emancipatory pedagogy in nursing education more intelligible by constructing, from the published literature, controversies and issues that exist concerning it. Two questions guided this research: Are there controversies, both general and specific, that can be constructed from representative, selected published literature regarding emancipatory pedagogy in nursing education? And, if so, what are the structures of these controversies?;To answer these questions, the dialectic method developed by Adler (1958, 1961) was utilized. The study was carried out in three phases: (1) identification and selection of relevant literature, (2) selection and recording of relevant passages from the selected literature, and (3) analysis of the selected passages and construction of the controversies. Four subjects of special controversy concerning emancipatory pedagogy in nursing education were identified including teaching which functions to (1) foster critical thinking; (2) construct egalitarian relations of power; (3) increase awareness of systematic gender-based injustices against nurses; and (4) transform oppressive social structures in nursing education and nursing practice. Common to all four of these subjects of special controversy was the notion that emancipatory pedagogy in nursing education functions as a political endeavor to free nurses from oppression. This broad notion of emancipatory pedagogy in nursing education served to delineate the subject of general controversy. Having identified the subjects of the general and special controversies, the conceptual, existential, and normative issues comprising each were then delineated.;This study contributes to a clearer understanding of emancipatory pedagogy in nursing education by setting forth the general and special controversies concerning it and by laying the groundwork for future philosophic debate of the issue which comprise those controversies. Ultimately, a clearer understanding of emancipatory pedagogy in nursing education will assist nurse educators in forming critical judgements regarding how such a pedagogy ought to be pursued and developed in nursing education.