Student nurses' construction of occupational socialisation.

This paper examines the occupational socialisation of British nurses. It uses Bucher and Strauss's notion of segmentation and considers two major segments within nursing: the education segment which, through the colleges of nursing, promotes a 'professional' version of nursing, and the service segment which is concerned with getting nursing work done. Students' accounts of their training were obtained by means of 40 informal interviews. On the basis of these accounts it is argued that the students learn neither the education nor the service segment's version of nursing, rather they learn to recognise when one version is appropriate and the other not and 'fit in' accordingly. The organisation of nurse training is based on a compromise between the two segments whereby the students move between clinical placements and the college of nursing; in this way both versions of nursing are enforceable on the students. The paper argues that nursing as an occupation, by its organisation and compromise solution to the training of its recruits, supports a transient approach to nursing work itself and so implicitly supports a lack of commitment to nursing as an occupation.