An International Nursing Community of Scholars? A Community of Scholars for International Nursing Science? Or Both?

Abstract

Several recent publications addressing international nursing scholarship (Hegyvary, 2005) and the concept of a community of scholars (Bunkers, 2005; Ferguson-Pare, 2005; Parse, 2005; Roy, 2005; Woude, 2005) piqued my interest as the editor of Research and Theory for Nursing Practice (RTNP). Why? I was hoping they might offer some food for thought on the nature of scholarship for an international nursing journal. It seemed fitting to inform my opinion with the contemporaneous thinking of scholars of the matter. After all, my previous editorial had just challenged RTNP readers, authors, reviewers, and editorial board to define international scholarship! Hegyvary's (2005) editorial was a series of responses to readers' questions about international scholarship as presented in the Journal of Nursing Scholarship, the official organ of Sigma Theta Tau International. Her thoughtful replies highlighted the importance of relevant content, an international-rather than an ethnocentric-perspective, generalization to and across populations, integrative comparisons of results, and authors' adherence to common standards of scientific rigor and of written expression in English, which is the international language of science. Also important to the question of what constitutes international nursing scholarship was her acknowledgment that international applies to us all as a collective with a common concern for the phenomena of human health and common foundations in theory, methods, and concept development. Certainly, these commonalities provide some cohesion for us as a discipline, regardless of our country of origin or residence or any ethnic group within it. Though not specifically stated, the notion of a community of scholars was certainly a given in Hegyvary's editorial. It led me to wonder: So, how do contemporary thinkers define this concept and how might it apply to an international journal? Some answers came in a column published in Nursing Science Quarterly in which Bunkers (2005) included a series of five short pieces on this concept, some written by leading scholars of nursing science. Although the authors took different slants in elaborating their meaning of the idea, a few characteristics were expressed over and again. A synthesis of these views produces the following characteristics for a community of scholars: (a) a loose group with open membership; (b) a conviction, vision, or focus on learning about a certain significant something; (c) engagement in an ongoing critical dialogue; (d) a spirit of collegiality or solidarity, support, and enablement (Bunkers, 2005; Ferguson-Pare, 2005; Parse, 2005; Roy, 2005; Woude, 2005). …