Professional militancy of nurses in the field of nursing education: versions and interpretations of journalism

ABSTRACT

Objective

to analyze the versions and interpretations of journalism on the professional militancy of nurses in the field of nursing education.

Method

a historical and documental study, of qualitative approach, based on the Social History theory and with comprehensive argumentative typification. The data was collected between September and October 2017, in Salvador, Bahia, through a survey of the news published in the newspaper A Tarde, in the period from 01/01/1970 to 31/12/1989. A total of 1,666 reports were identified that dealt with nurses and, of these, 16 reports were used, which dealt with professional militancy in the field of Nursing education. The analysis and interpretation of the material followed the proposal of Content Analysis, in the Thematic modality.

Results

the findings point to the nurses' professional militancy in favor of university education; to technical education, including technical and auxiliary staff; and to professional qualification, addressing complementary education beyond the undergraduate curriculum.

Conclusion and implications for practice

the publications showed the engagement of nurses against decontextualized university teaching and outdated methodologies, the fight for the qualification of middle-level workers and the militant action of the representative institutions, which used the media to communicate the need for mobilization of the category in favor of professional development.

Keywords:
Education, Nursing; History; Political Activism; Politics; Journalism

RESUMO

Objetivo

analisar as versões e interpretações do Jornalismo sobre a militância profissional de enfermeiras no campo da formação em Enfermagem.

Método

estudo histórico, documental, de abordagem qualitativa, embasado na teoria da História Social e com tipificação argumentativa compreensivista. Os dados foram coletados entre setembro e outubro de 2017, em Salvador, Bahia, por meio do levantamento das notícias publicadas no jornal A Tarde, no período de 01/01/1970 a 31/12/1989. Foram identificadas 1.666 reportagens que versavam sobre as enfermeiras e, destas, foram utilizadas 16 reportagens, as quais abordavam a militância profissional no campo da formação em Enfermagem. A análise e a interpretação do material seguiram a proposta da Análise de Conteúdo, na modalidade Temática.

Resultados

os achados apontam para a militância profissional das enfermeiras em prol da formação universitária; para a formação técnica, compreendendo o pessoal técnico e auxiliar e para a qualificação profissional, abordando a formação complementar para além do ensino curricular da graduação.

Conclusão e implicações para a prática

as publicações evidenciaram o engajamento das enfermeiras contra o ensino universitário descontextualizado e com metodologias ultrapassadas, a luta pela qualificação dos trabalhadores de nível médio e a atuação militante das instituições representativas, que se utilizaram da mídia para comunicar a necessidade de mobilização da categoria em prol do desenvolvimento profissional.

Palavras-chave:
Educação em Enfermagem; História; Ativismo Político; Política; Jornalismo

RESUMEN

Objetivo

analizar las versiones e interpretaciones del periodismo sobre la militancia profesional del enfermero en el campo de la formación en Enfermería.

Método

estudio histórico, documental, con enfoque cualitativo, basado en la teoría de la Historia Social y con una tipificación argumentativa integral. Los datos fueron recolectados entre septiembre y octubre de 2017, en Salvador, Bahía, a través de una encuesta de noticias publicadas en Jornal A Tarde, del 01/01/1970 al 31/12/1989. Se identificaron 1.666 informes relacionados con enfermeras y, de estos, se utilizaron 16 informes que abordan la militancia profesional en el campo de la formación en Enfermería. El análisis e interpretación del material siguió la propuesta de Análisis de Contenido, en la modalidad Temática.

Resultados

los hallazgos apuntan a la militancia profesional de las enfermeras a favor de la formación universitaria; para la formación técnica, incluido el personal técnico y auxiliar, y para la cualificación profesional, abordando la formación complementaria más allá del plan de estudios de pregrado.

Conclusión e implicaciones para la práctica

las publicaciones evidenciaron el compromiso de las enfermeras frente a la educación universitaria descontextualizada y metodologías obsoletas, la lucha por la calificación de los trabajadores de nivel secundario y la acción militante de las instituciones representativas, que utilizaron los medios de comunicación para comunicar la necesidad de movilización de la categoría a favor del desarrollo profesional.

Palabras clave:
Educación en Enfermería; Historia; Ativismo Político; Política; Periodismo

INTRODUCTION

Despite the numerous advances and transformations in the educational and pedagogical area, the nursing education model remains centered on traditional and hegemonic molds, sometimes tied to the biologicist and technicist paradigm¹. The predominance of this educational model based on the conception of disease, with a focus on cure and fragmented by the social and technical division of labor, is the result of a long historical process that has guided the development of the profession and contributed to the political fragility of the professional categories that make up the Nursing team^2-4.

In addition, the educational precepts assumed by nursing schools in Brazil followed a religious and military pattern, based on moral rigor and religiosity, which may have favored a submissive, obedient, self-sacrificing, and devotional professional practice. Historically, this may have accentuated the political fragility of the profession⁵.

However, more recently, some practices of freedom have revealed themselves capable of breaking with the modes of domination established by the hegemonic paradigm of formation. In this perspective, the literature points to three possibilities: formative possibility, since political engagement and activism are favored through organizational and sociability experiences; possibility of resistance when facing the mechanisms of domination and indoctrination and practices of implication with the world, in the sense of being in the struggle with the other, and in the actions that aim at a better world and a better Nursing⁶.

In this context, it is understood that militancy represents a libertarian possibility, since it interferes/frees from interference in the political dimension of training present as a formative dimension in the political-pedagogical projects of higher education, technical and professional qualification courses. In this way, it can favor the revitalization of the formative conceptions imbricated with a citizen performance in health care.

For this study, we turned our attention to the 1970s and 1980s, a time of redemocratization of the country, when nurses were under the influence of libertarian, democratic and participatory conceptions, fighting against the unfavorable image, attributed to this category and in favor of building a professional identity⁷. In addition, this period is also marked by the possibility of a rupture with old paradigms, that sustained the training in Nursing. More specifically, in this period, the profession's banner of struggle was for curricular reformulation and in favor of the approval of the minimum curriculum in nursing graduation⁸.

In the search for an understanding of how this professional struggle was reflected in society, we chose to use journalistic material as a source of data because we understand that the media is a powerful instrument in the formation of public opinion and, therefore, capable of promoting changes in behavior and concepts. Because of their power of persuasion, the representations conveyed in the press tend to be perceived and assimilated as truths⁹.

It is, thus, the way the press constitutes itself as an agent of history, and a new version is recreated through the interpretation manifested by journalism, based on the way it looks at that reality¹⁰, not constituting the fact itself, but an approximation of the fact recreated by the writer of the story.

In light of the above, the purpose of this study is to analyze the versions and interpretations of journalism on the professional militancy of nurses in the field of nursing education.

METHOD

This is a historical study, with a qualitative approach, based on the Social History theory, the dimension of the historical field and with an argumentative compeensivist typication¹¹. Social history emerged in the context of the New History, a movement that began in 1929 with the creation of the Annales journal, and replaced the traditional narrative of facts with a problem-history, and broadened interest to all aspects of human life¹².

The research focused on the state of Bahia, a federative unit with the largest number of nurses in the Northeast region and fourth in the country¹³, which may reinforce the expressiveness of the study, considering the concentration of professionals in this state. In addition, it is also recognized by the expressive militant force due to the engaged political performance of nurses from Bahia^14-17.

The data sources used for the study were the reports published in the newspaper A Tarde, the main print media in the state of Bahia between the 1970s and 1980s¹⁸. At that time, the newspaper had as editor-in-chief Jorge Calmon Diniz de Bittencourt, an important figure in the Bahian and national scene. A journalist and law graduate, he was a member of the Bahia Academy of Letters, director of the State Public Library, and participated in the implementation of the Journalism course at the Federal University of Bahia, in 1949¹⁹. The journalist has also worked in the political field as a state deputy, Secretary of the Interior and Justice, and Minister of Audit of the State of Bahia.

The choice of the written press as the historical document for the research, in order to analyze the militancy of nurses, is based on the proposal of Social History¹¹, historical field that has, as a priority interest, the human clippings or human relations.

The data was collected between September and October 2017 through a survey of news published in the newspaper A Tarde, available for online access from computers located in the Public Library of the State of Bahia. The searches were made in all sections of the newspaper published in the period from 01/01/1970 to 31/12/1989. All newspaper articles from this period that dealt with nurses were selected, excluding those that dealt with mid-level nursing professionals or other health care categories. Given the finding, in experimental collection, that the reports that addressed the higher education professional could be obtained by using the two mentioned search terms, it was decided not to search with the term Nursing.

A total of 1,666 articles on the category were identified, of which 53 dealt with the militant action of nurses on behalf of the profession, and, of these, only 16 dealt with professional militancy in the field of nursing education.

The process of analysis and interpretation of the collected material followed the proposal of Content Analysis, in the Thematic modality²⁰.

In the pre-analytic stage, we carried out a floating reading of all the material and then a brief summary of each report was prepared, which contributed to a better visualization of the data.

In the exploration phase of the documental corpus, the data was coded to determine the units of analysis - Units of Record (UR) and Units of Context (UC). In addition, the information was classified and grouped into thematic categories²⁰.

After reading all the material, the UR were obtained, which are the smallest part of the content and whose occurrence is related to the categories raised. Simultaneously, the UCs were identified, a larger part of the content, indispensable for the interpretation of the text, and should be treated as the basic unit for the understanding of the coding of the UR²⁰. The units of analysis were organized and grouped by theme as shown in the results.

In accordance with the norms and guidelines established by the Ethics Committee for Research with Human Beings (CEPSH) and defined in Resolution No. 466/12 of the National Health Council, there was a prior exemption from submitting the research project to the CEPSH because it is a documentary study that used only public and freely accessible documents. In addition, Resolution 510/16 establishes that research that uses information of public access under the terms of Law 12,527/2011 and/or research that adopts information in the public domain will not be registered or evaluated by the REC/CONEP system.

RESULTS

Based on the content analysis of the reports published by A Tarde newspaper, the findings were grouped by thematic similarity as presented in Chart 1. The news clippings are presented together with the title of the story and the date of publication.

Chart 1
News clippings from the newspaper A Tarde. Salvador, BA, Brazil (1975 to 1989).

Newspaper clipping	Theme
UFBA Madrigal closes Nursing Congress	University education
The main recommendations of the Congress [XXVIII Brazilian Nursing Congress], held in Salvador, elaborated on the morning of the 2nd, are directed, in their majority, to the directors of university hospitals, Nursing schools and to the ABEn, emphasizing the need for a curriculum that enables the student to perceive the functional characteristics of professional practice. Along with this aspect, emphasis was given to the damage that teaching disconnected from service brings, affecting the part of health care as well as that of education for the profession. (04.08.1975 – pg 3)
Valuing the profession, the nurses' goal
The problems in nursing start with the teaching, which, as Maria Ivete Oliveira observes, “is not always focused on reality; schools do not always have human resources and materials available, which make a more objective learning possible”. (04.05.1980 – pg 2)
Meeting ends with repudiation and suggestions
In the closing session of the meeting, held in the evening in the auditorium of the Institute of Health Sciences of the State, a document prepared by 11 work groups was distributed in which proposals for the reformulation of the curricula of Nursing and Midwifery courses are presented. [...] According to information from the president of the Executive Commission of the II Meeting, during the three days there were debates among participants from all over the country, presented by the Commission of Experts in Nursing of the MEC and by a group of professors from several other Brazilian states, in order to elaborate the single proposal with all the suggestions for the change of the curriculum. The main problems addressed in the proposal are related to the adequacy of the four professional qualifications in the area, with special attention to the qualification of the obstetric nurse or specialist in the maternal and child area, as well as a generalist nurse to later prepare for their adequacy in the existing qualifications. (11.09.1980 – pg 10)
Nursing defines its banner of struggle today
Nursing students defended that in order to make the desired evolution feasible, it is necessary to introduce better curricula, carry out community work linked or not to the university with greater appreciation of the Nursing process, and also to seek greater integration with professional organizations. [...] “Our professional training does not match reality and leads us to be submissive to the physician, insecure and accommodating, prejudiced against the male professional, bureaucratic due to work overload, and distant from the patient. [...]”. According to the report, the curriculum of nursing courses does not meet the needs of the future professional, “due to a lack of definition of the professional profile and a disconnection between the baggage acquired in school and the reality of work performed in the community”. (25.07.1981 – pg 3)
Nurse denounces exploitation of the class
The nurse recalled the importance and the social role of the Nurse, which “should not be forgotten by the professionals in the sector, because - she added - besides being a technique, Nursing is also a social practice, but as colleges always emphasize the former, we are in danger of forgetting its social role. (13.10.1981 – pg 3)
Nursing fights for professional valorization	Technical Training
Although “neither hospitals nor clinics can function without graduate-level nurses”, as the Union of Nursing Professionals, Technicians, Douchers, Massage Therapists, and Hospital and Health House Employees of Salvador, Bahia believes, there is a deficit of properly qualified nursing assistants. The way that the Union finds to remedy this deficiency is the most correct possible: ask the State Education Secretary to promote courses to train these professionals. Such orientation is likely to be extended to a series of other auxiliary activities of professionals and that today are exercised by people who are obliged to go to the University and spend a minimum of four years there to acquire knowledge capable of being taught in much less time in vocational high schools. (12.05.1980 – pg 1)
Nursing fights for professional valorization
According to Maria Ivete de Oliveira - who has already been secretary of Labor and Social Welfare; in the preliminary draft was established a much broader program of training of nursing attendants, stimulating them to do the professionalizing substitution and, “if necessary, to provision those who have conditions and interest in improving the quality of work”. (12.05.1980 – pg 1)
Nurse defends a new health model
On the subject, the data in Bahia are not encouraging, because nursing care is mostly provided by unqualified professionals, favoring the poor quality of the service provided because of cheaper labor. The hospitals prefer to hire attendants, who often don't even have the first degree of schooling and much less the notions of direct care to human lives, than specialized nurses. For this reason, the Nursing Council is fighting to give these people regular training, turning them into nursing assistants. (15.07.1982 – pg 3)
Nursing: The greatest happiness is when you give a little of yourself	Professional Qualification
In Bahia, the Week of Nursing will implement an extension course with 27 classes, dealing with the “Update in Dynamic Psychiatric Nursing”, taught by professors Stela Sena, from the Federal University of Bahia and Tereza Sena, Head Nurse of the Institute of Psychiatry in Rio de Janeiro. (17.05.1970 – pg 2)
Nursing fights for professional valorization
With the large number of industries working in Bahia, occupational nursing could be of vital importance for the prevention of accidents, but the number of occupational nurses is very small [...] therefore, as part of the Nursing Week, the I Encontro de Enfermagem do Trabalho will take place[...] from this meeting, which will also bring a representative from the Ministry of Labor to Bahia, a course on Occupational Nursing can be scheduled at the UFBA's Nursing School, to facilitate the qualification of these professionals in the area. (12.05.1980 – pg 1)
Nursing promoted a student meeting
[...]was delivered by the vice-president of the Regional Council of Nursing, professor Cirlene Pires, who addressed the central theme of the V Encontro [V Encontro Regional de Estudantes de Enfermagem do Nordeste] “O Perfil do Enfermeiro”, followed by an extensive debate in which almost all the participants took part. Still on the same day, a lecture was given by professor Maristela Menezes Santos, from FEJ, about “Conscience in professional formation” [...]. Continuing [...], a lecture was given on “Absorption of the Labor Market”, by professor Cristina Melo, from UFBA, and at the end a debate under the coordination of professor Stella Barros on the “Acting of the Nurse in the Northeastern reality”. (10.09.1985 – pg 10)
Debate marks International Women's Day
Celebrating International Women's Day, today a debate with the theme “State Constitution, Women and Health” takes place in the auditorium of ABEn-BA, kicking off the promotion Encontro Marcado (Scheduled Meeting). The Scheduled Meeting will have a program always focused on the reality and the current moment, of interest to the category, which will aggregate the professionals around fundamental questions, to be discussed broadly and democratically. The promotion of the ABEn is part of the very dynamics of the association, which is committed to spreading current issues to the great number of professionals that integrate it, inviting them to participat. (07.03.1989 – pg 2)
World Health Day nurse movement
The assembly will be followed by the Scheduled Meeting, in the same place, an opportunity for debate and awareness of the category and that this month will be in charge of the nurse Jorge Lorenzetti, coordinator of the Legislation Commission of ABEn-Nacional and professor of the Federal University of Santa Catarina, who will speak on “Organic Law of the Single Health System”. (03.04.1989 – pg 4)

• SOURCE: elaborated by the authors.

The results point to the nurses' professional militancy in favor of university education; to technical training, comprising technical and auxiliary personnel; and to professional qualification, addressing complementary training beyond the undergraduate curricular teaching.

DISCUSSION

The results highlighted in Chart 1 demonstrate that the press gave visibility to the criticisms made to Higher Education in Nursing and to the commitment of the category to operate changes in the educational model. According to students, professionals and representative entities, the university education was disconnected from reality, lacked articulation with the community and was based on an outdated methodology. The hegemonic model of curative education did not favor the critical and emancipated education of nurses and may have contributed to perpetuate the subordination and submission of these professionals to traditional and hegemonic models.

In corroborating the findings in the literature²¹, in the second half of the 1970s, nurses began to question some basic principles that guided their training, such as the moral character and the strong religiosity prioritized until then to the detriment of professional competence. This growing awareness, according to the author²¹, may have been motivated by the vindication movements and social struggles for the re-democratization of the country, that were unfolding in the historical context of the end of the Military Dictatorship and also as a result of movements that were occurring internally in the category, such as the search for the democratization of the Brazilian Association of Nursing (ABEn), and the rupture with the entity's conservative philosophy.

Furthermore, the approval of Ordinance nº 271/1962, which defined the minimum curriculum for the Nursing course, brought great frustration to the category when it reduced the course to three years, excluded the discipline of Collective Health and did not define the course objectives and the basic disciplines²². With this, the ABEn and the Schools of Nursing mobilized together in an attempt to adapt the curricular provisions to the new training ideology⁸.

The nurses' challenge was to break with the technicist training in search of a teaching focused on reflective practice. According to the reflective teaching theory²³, the training must allow the professional the construction of knowledge based on the interlocution of theoretical knowledge and practical performance, based on the process of reflection-in-action, that is, the ability to reflect is stimulated by the interaction with the different situations experienced.

In this regard, it is worth highlighting the critical and engaged posture of nursing students who, even within the conservative and biologicist educational domain, demonstrated awareness of the political fragility that permeated the nurses by characterizing them as submissive, insecure and accommodated; a posture that was configured as one of the elements that favored the domination, the exploitation and professional devaluation of the category. The fact that it was only legally recognized as higher education in the 1960s, even though the nursing course was included in universities, can be seen as an example of the domination suffered by nurses on behalf of economic interests, since the ideological representation of the government prioritized increasing the number of nurses and not their qualification²¹.

Thus, it is verified that the media was used to communicate to society about the movements that were occurring within the scope of Nursing education and its search for the restructuring of educational models in health, evidencing the concern of the category with a conscious practice, committed to health needs and consistent with the context in which it was inserted. The militancy in favor of the development of university education resulted from a process of self-assessment of nurses as professionals and social subjects, who began to look at themselves, seeking to restructure their actions according to the demands of health and emancipatory ideological conceptions.

With respect to the findings of the journalistic clippings categorized as technical training, it is verified the disclosure, by the media, of the need for qualification of Nursing technicians and assistants due to the excessive number of personnel without adequate training exercising activities in the area. In 1985, the work force in nursing was composed mainly of nursing attendants, professionals without adequate qualification, who represented 63.8% of the category, followed by 21.1% of nursing assistants, 8.3% of nurses, and 6.8% of nursing technicians²⁴.

It is denoted that the workforce expressed in this period was mostly composed of personnel with training for the actions and basic care in Nursing, the Nursing attendants here indicated as without formal qualification and the other Nursing professionals who make up the category, composed of workers with distinct training processes, with differentiation in terms of legislation, professional practice and in terms of the perspective of the world of work, because they also had wage differences.

In the face of the economic crisis, epidemics and the consolidation of Public Health care by the National Institute of Social Security (NISS), there was a great demand for nursing professionals generated by the expansion of the health care network, which promoted the creation of technical courses in Nursing²⁵. However, the fragility in training technical personnel in sufficient quantity, added to the capitalist interests of hospitals, which aimed at profit over the quality of service provided, contributed to the chaos of Nursing care²⁶.

However, it is worth noting that this dichotomy established between higher education and technical courses was nothing more than the extension of an educational practice implemented in the 1930s, which aimed at the professional qualification of low-income social strata to meet the interests of the labor market, with higher education being reserved for the more elite social strata²⁷. The training of technical personnel also served the interests of the market, which intended to cheapen the cost of health care and nursing. This dichotomy also reinforced the social division of labor and politically weakened the category, which began to obtain individual conquests and not for the collective of the Nursing team.

The results show that the media highlighted the complaints made by class entities, mainly by the council, seeking to make the population aware of the interests and risks that permeated the hiring of unqualified personnel to perform activities in the Nursing field.

This period coincided with the creation of the Federal and Regional Councils of Nursing, made possible by the interest of the ABEn in founding an organ responsible for the professional regulation and fiscalization of teaching and practice in Nursing²⁸. The denunciations made by the council and reported by the newspaper demonstrated the agency's efforts to implement a professionalization program for the attendants, motivated by the need to control the disorderly expansion of personnel without formal qualifications who worked in the area and contributed to the devaluation of the category, especially nurses.

As the literature points out²⁹, The expansion of a heterogeneous number of nursing personnel, exceeding the necessary demand, resulted in a reserve contingent of nurses competing among themselves and with other workers for insertion in the labor market. Consequently, the lack of competition among employers for hiring nurses, together with the incipient political organization of the class, especially with regard to union engagement, contributed to reduce the value of the work of these professionals.

In this perspective, we agree with the author²⁹ by arguing that the technical and social division of labor in Nursing implied the devaluation of the work of nurses, since they were easily replaced by mid-level personnel by employers. Such division also contributes to the simplification of the work of this category and the loss of identity and specificity of the professions that make up the Nursing team. It is noteworthy that the fragmentation into simple functions annuls, in practice, the difference in attributions between nurses and the other practitioners in the area so that the less qualified performs the same function as another with higher education. The social division of labor is represented as a source of social inequality, because in the development of work activities, class inequalities are reproduced³⁰.

Regarding the invisibility and devaluation of the specificity of the nurse's work, caused by the fragmentation into several categories, the mistaken position of the Union of Nursing Professionals, Technicians, Douchers, Masseurs and Hospital and Health House Employees of Salvador, representative body of the professional health categories, which should be responsible for acting in defense of labor rights, calls attention. The mentioned union entity undervalued the theoretical and practical scientific basis of the training of nurses, showing lack of understanding about the work of each member of the Nursing team. The entity criticized the need to undergo a four-year university education, alleging that such knowledge would be learned in professional courses, as if this were possible.

The propagation of unreal representations perpetuates, in the imaginary of society, the invisibility of the nurse and disqualifies the profession, reducing its performance to practices devoid of scientificity. The absence of clearly established limits of action among professionals left room for the understanding that this work could be performed by any other worker, even without formal qualification.

Thus, in face of this context of precariousness, the interest in controlling who practiced in the area is evident. The mobilization for the creation of the council and the elaboration of proposals for the professionalization of mid-level personnel were motivated by the nurses' interest in protecting the profession in an attempt to preserve the economic and social status of a higher-level category that holds scientific knowledge, competencies, and specific skills that cannot be learned in shorter courses.

In this regard, authors³¹ affirmed that the approval of Law 7.498/86, which regulated the professional practice of nursing, was also a strategy to qualify workers, since it regulated the four categories that could exercise activities in the area - nurse, nursing technician, nursing assistant and midwife, defined the function of each member, preventing other workers from exercising specific attributions of nurses, and recognized the existence of the nursing assistant, determining its extinction within ten years.

Regarding the last theme addressed in this discussion, the reports dealt with the disclosure of Nursing education that occurred outside the formal structure of undergraduate and mid-level education. As one scholar pointed out³², pedagogical learning relationships are not limited to the school environment, since they occur in multiple social spaces and in the diverse relationships established among individuals.

In this sense, the results reported the performance of the ABEn in the organization and dissemination of scientific programs such as the Nursing Week and the project entitled “Encontro Marcado” (Scheduled Meeting) with the purpose of establishing spaces for discussion, and debate on current themes in the health area, congregating the category around discussions on teaching and practice, and disseminating information of interest to the class. These events were promoted by ABEn, which sought to make the category aware of the need to reflect on the profession in a critical and coherent way with the sociopolitical context in which it was inserted.

The participation of students and workers in collective discussion spaces can favor reflections about the profession, as well as the identification of problems and the elaboration of strategies aimed at the improvement and development of Nursing. Evidence¹⁶ pointed out that the experience in spaces that stimulate reflection, through critical discussions about the profession, broadens the perspective of understanding of the individual and encourages political engagement, working as a catalyst for professional militancy.

In addition, political participation and engaged action are stimulated by formative experiences away from medicine and the technicist model practiced in universities. Interdisciplinary knowledge, from Collective Health, Sociology and Administration, are pointed out as subsidiary for the militant formation and are configured as liberating knowledge against invisibility, submission and lack of professional identity¹⁷.

In this sense, it is elementary to point out the positioning of nursing students in search of a professional formation imbued with criticality and socially engaged^3,4, contemplating the political dimension beyond the technical and scientific spheres of training. The themes discussed in meetings of nursing students demonstrated the awareness that occurred in the 1980s by placing the profession in the real context of the labor market, beset by hardships and also achievements, far from idealized discourses and guided by devotional behaviors.

Again, the importance of student participation in formative spaces that favor the development of political consciousness is emphasized, since students who participated or acted on behalf of the profession during their formation tend to be politically active after becoming professionals.

Nursing education is historically changeable and its transformations are also conditioned to social and market needs. Thus, the educational model must be constantly reassessed and modified to meet not only the interests of the labor market, but also of the professional body.

CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE

The professional militancy of nurses in the field of training was evidenced by the media through action in the context of university training, committed to technical training and in favor of professional qualification outside the curricular context of graduation.

In the field of university education, nurses and nursing students demonstrated a critical and active position in relation to the decontextualized teaching practiced by universities, based on outdated methodologies. According to them, technical improvement was overvalued in detriment of social humanistic training and there was a weak approach to the political dimension in training, contributing to subjugated professional practice.

In favor of technical training, the militancy was evidenced from the struggle undertaken for the qualification of middle-level workers, having as the main motivator the effort to ensure the conquests already achieved and to restrain the social and economic devaluation of the nurse's work resulting from the social and technical fragmentation of the work in Nursing. The foundation of the Nursing Council, as an organ that oversees and regulates the profession, and also instrumentalized by the legal apparatus that regulated the exercise of the profession, represented another strategy undertaken to improve the quality of the services provided and combat the market practice of replacing nurses with other workers who were not qualified for this function.

In the area of qualification, there was a militant performance by representative institutions, which used the media to communicate the need to get involved in wider discussions, coherent with the sociopolitical context in which the assistance is inserted and committed to the ideals of health and the development and valorization of the profession.

Finally, it is noteworthy that this study had the limitation of some aspects related to the consistency of the content presented in the reports, which is a characteristic particularity of journalistic sources. The lack of clarity and the explanation of the ideas in a too succinct manner demanded greater efforts to understand the information presented in the analyzed clippings.

Another limitation is linked to the need to cut out sources and the temporal delimitation of the study. Despite not intending to generalize the research findings, it is worth highlighting its contribution to Nursing, since, in addition to documenting the movements and agendas of Brazilian Nursing, the study points out structuring perspectives for the defense of the profession, the field of knowledge and care in health and Nursing.

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Edited by

ASSOCIATED EDITOR

Antonio José Almeida Filho https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2547-9906

SCIENTIFIC EDITO

R Marcelle Miranda da Silva https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4872-7252

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  18 Aug 2021
• Date of issue
  2021

History

• Received
  15 Feb 2021
• Accepted
  05 June 2021