Toward critical thinking as a virtue: The case of mental health nursing education. (July 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Adam, Simon; Juergensen, Linda
• Is Part Of: Nurse education in practice. Volume 38(2019)
• Page Start: 138
• Page End: 144
• Publication Date: 2019-07
• Subjects: Nursing -- Study and teaching -- Periodicals; Education, Nursing -- Periodicals; Nursing -- Study and teaching; Periodicals; Electronic journals; 610.73071
• DOI: 10.1016/j.nepr.2019.06.006
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1471-5953

Abstract

Abstract: Critical thinking in nursing is largely theorized as a clinically-based idea. In the context of mental health education, this presents a problem, given documented evidence of a shift to demedicalize mental illness. Using institutional ethnography, this article examines the critical thinking of nursing faculty in a baccalaureate nursing program in a Canadian university by way of focus group interviews, observation periods, and the analysis of a number of institutional and legislative texts. The findings suggest that the critical thinking of nursing faculty is caught within a constrained institutional-textual order. Drawing on critical theory and Foucauldian philosophy, recommendations for nursing education are made in order to diversify and extend critical thinking in mental health nursing.