Nursing Roles and Relationships: Perceptions of Baccalaureate Students

Abstract

THE ISSUE Socialization involves a continuous process of acquiring the values and norms, attitudes and behaviour patterns associated with particular roles. The more thoroughly the individual internalizes these and accepts the rights and obligations that are a part of the role, the less subsequent socialization will be necessary, and the fewer controls will need to be exercised over the individual in his or her role performance. Nurses, for example, who have internalized the concept of the medical profession as having a superior status and the nursing profession a subservient one, are unlikely to challenge either the structure or function of existing medical or nursing roles (see Ashley 1973). In that nursing in general and nursing education in particular have changed considerably in recent years and continue to be under pressure for change (Kovacs 1974, Freeman 1972, Yelverton 1972), an examination of the perceptions baccalaureate nursing students have of nursing roles and relationships is timely. Although students' socio-economic and family backgrounds may play a part in developing a conception of nursing roles (Powell 1972) the greatest degree of role socialization occurs during the time the individual is a student. In this context, the education for, and socialization into, this professional role involves the acquisition of requisite knowledge, skills and as well, appropriate attitudes and orientations (see Given 1975:11). It is the latter aspect of nursing socialization that is of interest here, in that these acquisitions are crucial to effective professional functioning and relationships. They are important to the nurse who graduates into, and must function as part of, rapidly changing public and institutional milieux.