571607
research-article2015
NSQXXX10.1177/0894318415571607Nursing Science QuarterlyMilton / Ethical Issues
Ethical Issues
Ethics and the Politics of Advancing Nursing Knowledge
Nursing Science Quarterly 2015, Vol. 28(2) 112–114 © The Author(s) 2015 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/0894318415571607 nsq.sagepub.com
Constance L. Milton, RN; PhD1
Abstract The politics of academia involve intricate human relationships that are political in nature as nurse leaders and scholars struggle to advance nursing science with complex leading-following situations. This article begins a dialogue of considering potential meanings for what it means to be political within competing interest groups in academia, and within the discipline of nursing. What is most important in the struggle for identity and what possibilities surface when potential competing interests in academia collide? The ethical tenets of humanbecoming and the leading-following model are used to illustrate issues surrounding academic integrity and possibilities for the advancement of nursing scholarship in future generations. Keywords Ethics, humanbecoming, nursing, politics The word political originates from the Greek word politika and refers to competition between competing interest groups for power and leadership (merriam-webster.com. When considering the infinite possibilities of direction and priorities that emerge in academic university settings where the advancement of nursing knowledge is paramount in mission, questions arise regarding the power and politics of nurse scholars who are entrusted with educating the future generations of nurse leaders and whose duties and responsibilities should advance the art and science of nursing along with the advancement of the discipline as a human science. The politics of academia involve exploring human relationships where power and position interplay (Grant, 2014). Persons may choose to use power in position and administrators set the tone for academic, research, and scholarship priorities for faculty members and the emerging approved degree programming for students. The politics of academia are also evidenced with an academic identity or image for how the institution is known through its types of programs and through its research productivity. Struggling for power in academia has strong implications for the financing of education for future generations of students who will become the next nurse leaders and scholars of the discipline. In the current political climate, the abiding struggle for affirmation of personal scholarship and research productivity is encouraged with the movement called evidence-based research. The production of research evidence outcomes involves quantitative research evidence obtained through positivistic evidence-based research designs and methodologies. There is an insatiable need for the acquisition and analysis of “big data” that can be applied to healthcare and professional nurse practice. Producing healthcare research
utilizing these methods is then labeled as preferable and suitable for evidence-based practice for the discipline. This movement looms as an ever-present priority in contemporary graduate and doctoral nurse education. Those faculty members who value the above mentioned research may receive different forms of affirmation for their efforts, while faculty members who value nursing theoretical frameworks and other theory-guided quantitative and qualitative nurse research may soon find themselves without positions of power. The personal scholarship trajectory of nurse researchers who seeks to advance human science in a different way may not be affirmed or acknowledged as being productive or valued. According to Rolfe (2012), academic work is largely assembly-line knowledge where the development of knowledge is done at speed in a culture where administrative expediencies may threaten, undermine, and eclipse other artistic forms of scholarship. The so-called knowledge business is packaged and sold as commodified information and qualifications. The structure of the educational institution of higher learning involves the acquisition of “big data” and incessant organizational housekeeping where dependence upon extramural funding from government and other agencies provide the salaries for the employment of faculty scholars and endowed professorships. From this stance, faculty scholarship does not count or is not considered meaningful if 1
Associate Dean and Professor of Nursing, Azusa Pacific University
Contributing Editor: Constance L. Milton, RN, PhD, Associate Dean and Professor of Nursing, Azusa Pacific University, 701 E. Foothill Blvd., Azusa, CA, 91702. Email: [email protected]
Milton / Ethical Issues it is not of a quantitative, biomedical science origin where “big data” can be acquired and analyzed for statistically significant relationships that bring forth evidence as outcomes for future practice in healthcare. How must we come to thoroughly govern ourselves as a discipline with these competing group interests found in the healthcare disciplines and specifically in the academic arena? As experienced by some members of our discipline, dialoguing with harsh words and deeds potentially dehumanizes persons and damages relationships between persons and group members of the nursing community, as well as with the community of persons we serve as providers of health services. The chosen rhetoric of what is said and not said is vital to fortifying human dignity and the offering of respect to one another in leading-following situations. Specifically, what are some potential meanings and changes in relationships that may evolve with the competing politics of advancing nursing knowledge in university systems where quantitative, biomedical extramural research is the dominant mode of scholarship? As a budding or seasoned nurse scholar, what are the personal implications for choosing being in the current climate of politics in academic life? From a humanbecoming perspective (Parse, 2011, 2014) in reflecting about one’s personal responsibility to colleagues and others, we must hold up the mirror for glimpsing personal truth and taking stock of being in leading-following situations. The intense reflection may facilitate untangling the knots found in the situation of opposing priorities with conflicting ideas expressed by all parties. Some questions to ask while holding up the mirror include questions of intimate contemplation and include, “who am I becoming, and what do I expect of myself and others in leading-following situations? and am I concerned more about being liked than being respected” (Parse, 2014, p. 134) in these situations? Am I respectful of others? How do I pursue excellence and live my hopes and dreams as a nurse leader and scholar? Clarification of the meaning of excellence with regard to new endeavors is paramount since colleagues and those in positions of power may espouse different views. The recognition of emerging pattern preferences of persisting-diversifying surfaces and pushes the persons involved to anchor some traditions and shift others by savoring what is of most value to persons, groups, and institutions while sacrificing what is not important to the mission (Parse, 2014). While there is intense pressure for faculty members and groups within an academic institution to continue to attend to and produce scholarship funded with large grants of extramural research, other preferred types of research and scholarship may be sacrificed or not attended to by individual faculty leaders and members of an institution. A leading-following model for the discipline of nursing is born from philosophical beliefs found in the ontology’s, epistemologies, and methodologies of chosen theoretical perspectives. For the author, leading-following and being with others amid the politics of attempting to advance nurse
113 knowledge in academic settings is viewed from the lens of the theoretical perspective of humanbecoming (Parse, 2014). The humanbecoming leading-following model is born from beliefs about humanuniverse as indivisible, unpredictable, everchanging. It is a guide to living leading-following with a focus on dignity, where power is with the constituents of situations. Living leading-following in this way potentially changes meanings, shifts rhythms, and cocreates infinite possibilities. In living the art, nurse leaders are persistently choosing excellence through revering others, while vigilantly attending to the sea change movement and the shifting waters that accompany unique endeavors that are different from what is viewed as being familiar. In viewing leadingfollowing situations imbued with potential conflict with competing interest groups, the nurse leader must honor the uniqueness of others. Honoring the uniqueness of others means not demanding one’s own way, but heeding to others with graciousness. Surprises unfold as nurse leaders and academicians are living with ambiguity and the vague potentials not yet fully known that are knotted up in obscurity. Opposition may unfold in the form of deliberate confrontation and subtle disturbances when engaging with others (Parse, 2014). The opposition may be paradoxical in nature as pushing-resisting patterns surface with the personal prejudices present in all leadingfollowing situations. In being with those who are in opposition, the nurse leader willingly risks in venturing forth with novel plans, programs, and projects while potentially being rejected, threatened, or not recognized in a manner consistent with expectations. The experienced conflict opens the way and offers opportunities for individuals to examine their personal worldviews while acknowledging other’s worldviews, making it possible to move on. In this model of leading-following (Parse, 2014), there is opportunity for recognizing diversity and respecting differences with reverence. Respecting differences is made explicit and is evident when alternative projects and plans are honored even while at-once honoring other researcher’s worldviews and project plans. It is the author’s view that competing persons and groups should be at the same table where respectful clarifications and opportunities may be made explicit and there is opportunity for the discovery of new possibilities. In a climate of being just and fostering integrity, infinite possibilities emerge and potentially transform a leading-following situation. Unique possibilities emerge with the struggling to incarnate the unfamiliar at once with the familiar. It is experiencing values and realizing purposes anew as new plans and project may emerge with renewed vigor. It is the author’s hope that in living leading-following situations in this model will foster a renewal of mission and values that seek to uphold and advance the discipline of nursing. As competing interests continue to crowd and obscure the thinking and priority-setting of nurse leaders, let us offer human dignity and respect for differences to our colleagues while at-once
114 beginning a new transforming path for the advancement of nursing knowledge. Declaration of Conflicting Interests The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this editorial.
Funding The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this editorial.
Nursing Science Quarterly 28(2) References Grant, A. (2014). Neoliberal higher education and nursing scholarship: Power, subjectification, threats and resistance. Nurse Education Today, 34, 1280-1282. Parse, R. R. (2011). Humanbecoming leading-following: The meaning of holding up the mirror. Nursing Science Quarterly, 24, 169-172. Parse, R. R. (2014). The humanbecoming paradigm: A transformational worldview. Pittsburgh, PA: Discovery International. Rolfe, G. (2012). Thinking as a subversive activity: Doing philosophy in the corporate university. Nursing Philosophy, 14, 28-37.
Copyright of Nursing Science Quarterly is the property of Sage Publications Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.
research-article2015
NSQXXX10.1177/0894318415571607Nursing Science QuarterlyMilton / Ethical Issues
Ethical Issues
Ethics and the Politics of Advancing Nursing Knowledge
Nursing Science Quarterly 2015, Vol. 28(2) 112–114 © The Author(s) 2015 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/0894318415571607 nsq.sagepub.com
Constance L. Milton, RN; PhD1
Abstract The politics of academia involve intricate human relationships that are political in nature as nurse leaders and scholars struggle to advance nursing science with complex leading-following situations. This article begins a dialogue of considering potential meanings for what it means to be political within competing interest groups in academia, and within the discipline of nursing. What is most important in the struggle for identity and what possibilities surface when potential competing interests in academia collide? The ethical tenets of humanbecoming and the leading-following model are used to illustrate issues surrounding academic integrity and possibilities for the advancement of nursing scholarship in future generations. Keywords Ethics, humanbecoming, nursing, politics The word political originates from the Greek word politika and refers to competition between competing interest groups for power and leadership (merriam-webster.com. When considering the infinite possibilities of direction and priorities that emerge in academic university settings where the advancement of nursing knowledge is paramount in mission, questions arise regarding the power and politics of nurse scholars who are entrusted with educating the future generations of nurse leaders and whose duties and responsibilities should advance the art and science of nursing along with the advancement of the discipline as a human science. The politics of academia involve exploring human relationships where power and position interplay (Grant, 2014). Persons may choose to use power in position and administrators set the tone for academic, research, and scholarship priorities for faculty members and the emerging approved degree programming for students. The politics of academia are also evidenced with an academic identity or image for how the institution is known through its types of programs and through its research productivity. Struggling for power in academia has strong implications for the financing of education for future generations of students who will become the next nurse leaders and scholars of the discipline. In the current political climate, the abiding struggle for affirmation of personal scholarship and research productivity is encouraged with the movement called evidence-based research. The production of research evidence outcomes involves quantitative research evidence obtained through positivistic evidence-based research designs and methodologies. There is an insatiable need for the acquisition and analysis of “big data” that can be applied to healthcare and professional nurse practice. Producing healthcare research
utilizing these methods is then labeled as preferable and suitable for evidence-based practice for the discipline. This movement looms as an ever-present priority in contemporary graduate and doctoral nurse education. Those faculty members who value the above mentioned research may receive different forms of affirmation for their efforts, while faculty members who value nursing theoretical frameworks and other theory-guided quantitative and qualitative nurse research may soon find themselves without positions of power. The personal scholarship trajectory of nurse researchers who seeks to advance human science in a different way may not be affirmed or acknowledged as being productive or valued. According to Rolfe (2012), academic work is largely assembly-line knowledge where the development of knowledge is done at speed in a culture where administrative expediencies may threaten, undermine, and eclipse other artistic forms of scholarship. The so-called knowledge business is packaged and sold as commodified information and qualifications. The structure of the educational institution of higher learning involves the acquisition of “big data” and incessant organizational housekeeping where dependence upon extramural funding from government and other agencies provide the salaries for the employment of faculty scholars and endowed professorships. From this stance, faculty scholarship does not count or is not considered meaningful if 1
Associate Dean and Professor of Nursing, Azusa Pacific University
Contributing Editor: Constance L. Milton, RN, PhD, Associate Dean and Professor of Nursing, Azusa Pacific University, 701 E. Foothill Blvd., Azusa, CA, 91702. Email: [email protected]
Milton / Ethical Issues it is not of a quantitative, biomedical science origin where “big data” can be acquired and analyzed for statistically significant relationships that bring forth evidence as outcomes for future practice in healthcare. How must we come to thoroughly govern ourselves as a discipline with these competing group interests found in the healthcare disciplines and specifically in the academic arena? As experienced by some members of our discipline, dialoguing with harsh words and deeds potentially dehumanizes persons and damages relationships between persons and group members of the nursing community, as well as with the community of persons we serve as providers of health services. The chosen rhetoric of what is said and not said is vital to fortifying human dignity and the offering of respect to one another in leading-following situations. Specifically, what are some potential meanings and changes in relationships that may evolve with the competing politics of advancing nursing knowledge in university systems where quantitative, biomedical extramural research is the dominant mode of scholarship? As a budding or seasoned nurse scholar, what are the personal implications for choosing being in the current climate of politics in academic life? From a humanbecoming perspective (Parse, 2011, 2014) in reflecting about one’s personal responsibility to colleagues and others, we must hold up the mirror for glimpsing personal truth and taking stock of being in leading-following situations. The intense reflection may facilitate untangling the knots found in the situation of opposing priorities with conflicting ideas expressed by all parties. Some questions to ask while holding up the mirror include questions of intimate contemplation and include, “who am I becoming, and what do I expect of myself and others in leading-following situations? and am I concerned more about being liked than being respected” (Parse, 2014, p. 134) in these situations? Am I respectful of others? How do I pursue excellence and live my hopes and dreams as a nurse leader and scholar? Clarification of the meaning of excellence with regard to new endeavors is paramount since colleagues and those in positions of power may espouse different views. The recognition of emerging pattern preferences of persisting-diversifying surfaces and pushes the persons involved to anchor some traditions and shift others by savoring what is of most value to persons, groups, and institutions while sacrificing what is not important to the mission (Parse, 2014). While there is intense pressure for faculty members and groups within an academic institution to continue to attend to and produce scholarship funded with large grants of extramural research, other preferred types of research and scholarship may be sacrificed or not attended to by individual faculty leaders and members of an institution. A leading-following model for the discipline of nursing is born from philosophical beliefs found in the ontology’s, epistemologies, and methodologies of chosen theoretical perspectives. For the author, leading-following and being with others amid the politics of attempting to advance nurse
113 knowledge in academic settings is viewed from the lens of the theoretical perspective of humanbecoming (Parse, 2014). The humanbecoming leading-following model is born from beliefs about humanuniverse as indivisible, unpredictable, everchanging. It is a guide to living leading-following with a focus on dignity, where power is with the constituents of situations. Living leading-following in this way potentially changes meanings, shifts rhythms, and cocreates infinite possibilities. In living the art, nurse leaders are persistently choosing excellence through revering others, while vigilantly attending to the sea change movement and the shifting waters that accompany unique endeavors that are different from what is viewed as being familiar. In viewing leadingfollowing situations imbued with potential conflict with competing interest groups, the nurse leader must honor the uniqueness of others. Honoring the uniqueness of others means not demanding one’s own way, but heeding to others with graciousness. Surprises unfold as nurse leaders and academicians are living with ambiguity and the vague potentials not yet fully known that are knotted up in obscurity. Opposition may unfold in the form of deliberate confrontation and subtle disturbances when engaging with others (Parse, 2014). The opposition may be paradoxical in nature as pushing-resisting patterns surface with the personal prejudices present in all leadingfollowing situations. In being with those who are in opposition, the nurse leader willingly risks in venturing forth with novel plans, programs, and projects while potentially being rejected, threatened, or not recognized in a manner consistent with expectations. The experienced conflict opens the way and offers opportunities for individuals to examine their personal worldviews while acknowledging other’s worldviews, making it possible to move on. In this model of leading-following (Parse, 2014), there is opportunity for recognizing diversity and respecting differences with reverence. Respecting differences is made explicit and is evident when alternative projects and plans are honored even while at-once honoring other researcher’s worldviews and project plans. It is the author’s view that competing persons and groups should be at the same table where respectful clarifications and opportunities may be made explicit and there is opportunity for the discovery of new possibilities. In a climate of being just and fostering integrity, infinite possibilities emerge and potentially transform a leading-following situation. Unique possibilities emerge with the struggling to incarnate the unfamiliar at once with the familiar. It is experiencing values and realizing purposes anew as new plans and project may emerge with renewed vigor. It is the author’s hope that in living leading-following situations in this model will foster a renewal of mission and values that seek to uphold and advance the discipline of nursing. As competing interests continue to crowd and obscure the thinking and priority-setting of nurse leaders, let us offer human dignity and respect for differences to our colleagues while at-once
114 beginning a new transforming path for the advancement of nursing knowledge. Declaration of Conflicting Interests The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this editorial.
Funding The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this editorial.
Nursing Science Quarterly 28(2) References Grant, A. (2014). Neoliberal higher education and nursing scholarship: Power, subjectification, threats and resistance. Nurse Education Today, 34, 1280-1282. Parse, R. R. (2011). Humanbecoming leading-following: The meaning of holding up the mirror. Nursing Science Quarterly, 24, 169-172. Parse, R. R. (2014). The humanbecoming paradigm: A transformational worldview. Pittsburgh, PA: Discovery International. Rolfe, G. (2012). Thinking as a subversive activity: Doing philosophy in the corporate university. Nursing Philosophy, 14, 28-37.
Copyright of Nursing Science Quarterly is the property of Sage Publications Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.
