A critical discourse analysis of Irish nurse academics’ comments reveals a dependent, fragmented discipline with a weak academic infrastructure, prone to colonization by other discourses. Respondents lack a language that articulates an academic and professional nursing identity, the form and content of educational programs that are distinctively nursing, and lack the proper focus and scope of nursing research. These findings are discussed in light of the role of academic clinical practice and nursing discipline-specific discourses in providing the conditions of possibility for the establishment, maintenance, and reproduction of a critical mass of nurse scholars with both academic and clinical legitimacy.
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