The objective of this ethnographic study was to identify the structures of scientific and pedagogical rationality which sustain and give meaning to the practice of nursing education. Nine professors and 11 students from an undergraduate Nursing School as well as 12 nursing assistants from a university hospital in Spain participated in the research. The data were obtained through method triangulation: participant and non-participant observation; interviews, registered in a field diary and/or magnetic tape; and analysis through the constant comparison technique. The results demonstrate that the Nursing curriculum presents a technical orientation, directed to the product with a strong concern for acquiring skills, in which learning is perceived as an acquisition, accumulation, and reproduction of information.
Nursing; Education; Curriculum; Etnography