THE FOCUS OF THE DISCIPLINE OF NURSING - A CRITIQUE AND EXTENSION

Influential writings in nursing tend to align with views held and priv ileged in the scientific community. By taking this stance nurses resis t changes that would advance the discipline and give voice and visibil ity to marginalized people in society who seek the socially relevant s ervice that nursing purports to offer. The difficulty stems not only f rom the failure to question the dominance of particular approaches for knowledge generation over others, but also from the failure to recogn ize that our questions are constructed to support rather than to chall enge existing knowledge. Revisioning a pivotal article-''The focus of the discipline of nursing''-enhances its usefulness for nursing curric ula.