Derrida, Deconstruction and a Dialogue on the Contemporary Nursing Curriculum

This theoretical inquiry utilizes the philosophy of Jacques Derrida and deconstruction to begin a discourse on the disconnect between student learning and nursing education within the academy. By entering into a thoughtful, reasoned and responsible critique of the nursing curriculum, this journey of discovery examines those constructs integral to nursing education: students, teachers, identity, the art and science of nursing, the curriculum, power and control, and the university, their (dis)connectedness and begins a dialogue that positions nursing education as the legitimate professional nursing curricula for the next millennium. This journey of discovery recognizes an underlying thesis; meaningful learning that facilitates the evolution of caring, competent professional nurses requires an open, ongoing dialogue within the academy that embraces multiple truths, multiple realities and multiple possibilities. Nursing education must be in a constant state of deconstruction dedicated to self-reflection and willing to envelope itself in an aura of authentic anticipation as it works towards the curricula to come. As nursing education programs continue the ongoing complicated conversation on curriculum melding the science of nursing with its professional competencies, they must (re)introduce the art of nursing within a post-modern framework that respects the lessons of the past, acknowledges the reality of the present and embraces interpretation and individuation as 2 they situate nursing curricula within the philosophy of epistemology, ontology and axiology