Finding voice, being heard and living in the tension : novice nurse academics critical engagement with a problem orientated curriculum in the academic and practice setting

This thesis is an account of the lived experience of doing research in the critical paradigm in the context of the discipline of social ecology. It is a story with actors, a plot, and actions over time. The Worldview of social ecology has embedded within its epistemology the scope for the creative act of narrative, therefore this thesis is a critical conversation told in four voices. The research was embedded in critical social science methodology and method, and attempted to understand and transform the problematics concerning the social relations, practice, language and discourse which were uncovered when five novice nurse academics engaged in teaching a problem-orientated curriculum in the practice setting. It was a critical action research project based predominantly on the Kemmis and McTaggart Model (1988). The research also debated the nature of participative, collaborative action research undertaken in the context of gaining an educational qualification. Relevant to this point, two other contexts of the research were uncovered. The lived experience of ?doing? critical action research with colleagues and friends, in the context of gaining an educational qualification revealed both the praxis nature of ethical research and the reclaiming of an authoritative women?s voice in the academy. The ethical nature of research in critical social science, and the nature and role of human identity was explored in an effort to conceptualise both a methodology and a self identity which was embedded in a context of mutual growth. This growth was similar to Bookchin?s (1990) transitory states of ?becoming? what we wished to become in the academy. It was what is known in organisations as professional development. The author named this becoming, ?Finding a Women?s Voice and Being Heard?. Although ?finding voice? is situated in the personal, ?being heard? involves the ?not I? together with structural features of institutions. As a collaborative group, the participants actioned strategies in an attempt to deal with the structural limitations to our ?becoming?. These strategies, together with the consciousness raising nature of this particular action research project, enabled participants to speak of their own empowerment within an academic context in which they were often rendered powerless