ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
My particular thanks go to Patricia White who, as my supervisor, has forever been my
guide, encouraging me in my efforts and always ready and willing to provide helpful
and constructive critical commentary during the process of writing this thesis. I could
not have done it without her.
I would like to extend thanks to faculty and students of philosophy of education at the
Institute OfEducation, University of London. A small but significant community of
scholars to whom I owe much. I would also like to thank all those colleagues and
friends in nursing education, nursing philosophy and beyond who have been willing to
engage in discussions of the ideas that form the basis of this work.
I am indebted to the faculty of Health and Social Care at the University of the West of
England for the funding and the time to allow me to begin this undertaking. I am also
grateful for the award and grant provided by the Philosophy OfEducation Society of
Great Britain; these funds made it possible for me to complete this thesis when other
funding had been exhausted. I hope that all who have supported me in this endeavour
feel the final product to be sufficiently worthy.
I would also like to thank Blackwell Publishing for kind permission to use my own
authored work and to include, as appendices to this thesis, three original papers as
published in Nursing Philosophy.
Finally, I would like to thank my family for their forbearance during the years that this
work has taken to complete. It is to them that I dedicate this thesis.