Abstract: Te watea taupuhipuhi, the space of symbiosis is a framework for nursing practice. It examines the notion of the nursing presence as holding continuity and multiplicity of viewpoint in space of symbiosis. The author developed a teaching-learning situation as an introduction of key ideas in his work where the Maori word “ako” becomes the catalyst of a particular pedagogy that outlines the central notions of symbiosis. Thus, he notes, his work realises that symbiosis occurs not only on the clinical arena of nursing but in the teaching – learning environment as well, his own space of symbiosis. Four rites of passage coalesce a totality of experience within the space of symbiosis, revealing that the central role of the nursing presence is to surface meaning and sense for all of experience which can be fearful, mysterious, paradoxical and chaotic. These four rites of passage are described as the interpretive, integrative, transformations and transcendent. The twelve dynamics of nursing from the axle around which a praxis of nursing revolves. An analysis of those twelve dynamics in rite of passage is situated within narratives taken from the author's nursing practice. He also draws extensively from Maori ontology and autobiography in positioning his exposition within this local context.

Abstract: The authors note that the literature identifies that the transition from tertiary based training to the realities of industry expectations can be a stressful period for graduates. Various District Health Boards offer postgraduate papers within their graduate nursing programmes, resulting in graduates being expected to perform the role of a beginning practitioner as well as embark on postgraduate education during this first year. As yet, the authors note, there is little evidence available to substantiate the efficacy and impact of such papers. The purpose of this study was to explore graduate nurse's experience of postgraduate education within the Graduate Nurse Programme. The report contains the results of a survey of nurses within the Programme. This report details the results of that survey and make recommendations for consideration.

Abstract: The author considers aesthetic knowing and the use of the arts in nursing. She identifies concepts that pertain to the art of nursing. The interrelationship of the moral sense and the art of nursing is explored. The author concludes that the mediums of non-fiction, fiction and poetry can provide valuable contributions to the aesthetic way of knowing in nursing education, practice and research.

Abstract: In 1973, two trial pre-registration nursing education programmes were piloted in New Zealand polytechnics. These represented an alternative to traditional hospital-sited schools of nursing. The establishment of nursing education in the tertiary sector marked a radical challenge to the cultural heritage of apprenticeship-style nursing training associated with paternal and medically-dominated health institutions. This thesis offers a Foucauldian and feminist poststructuralist analysis of discourses employed by fifteen senior nursing educators in the comprehensive registration programmes between 1973 and 1992. The women employed to teach in the comprehensive programmes faced unique challenges in establishing departments of nursing, in developing curricula that would promote a reorientation of nursing and in supporting candidates to attain their nursing registration. Through semi-structured interviews and discourse analysis methods, a set of unique characteristics shared by this group of early leading comprehensive nursing educators has emerged. The women's narratives were underpinned by discourses that centre around the valuing of education as a vehicle for emancipation and an upholding of a legitimacy of difference in nursing educators' work. The participants upheld the importance of clinical practice skills and drew on their own student nursing experiences as incentives for reforming nursing education. These nursing educators conceptualised an idealised type of graduate, and commonly employed an heroic metaphor to describe their experiences as senior comprehensive educators. Their engagement with such discourses and their shared characteristics demonstrate unique re-constitutions of power, knowledge and relations with their colleagues and clients throughout the education and health care sectors. The author proposes that these traits characterise the women as strategic and astute professionals who successfully negotiated the construction of comprehensive nursing programmes as a legitimate and transformative preparation for nursing registration.

Abstract: This research explores why and how nurse educators teach for social change. Critical feminist educators provide a useful framework for theorising about teaching for change that addresses issues of hegemony, agency, praxis, individual voice, difference, justice and equity. Six women Pakeha/Tauiwi nurse educators from throughout New Zealand volunteered to participate in this research and share their lived experiences of teaching for social change. In-depth conversations over two years unfolded new and rich material about how and why these six women continue to teach the evaded subjects, like mental health, women's health, community development and cultural safety. All teach in counter-hegemonic ways, opening students' eyes to the unseen and unspoken. Among the significant things to emerge during the research was the metaphorical construct of shape-shifting as an active process in teaching for social change. It revealed the connectedness and integrity between life as lived and the moral imperative that motivates the participants to teach for difference. Shape-shifting was also reflected in other key findings of the study. As change agents, the participants have had significant shape-shifting experiences in their lives; they live and work as shape-shifters within complex social and political structures and processes to achieve social justice; and, they deal with areas of health practice where clients are socially and politically displaced. The research also generated new methods for gathering life-stories and new processes for analysis and interpretation of life-stories. It is hoped that this research will open pathways for other nurse educators to become shape-shifters teaching for social change.