Professional regulation in nursing education: Cultivating 'critical polyvocality' in regulator-educator relationships.

Abstract

Professional regulation aims to assure the public that nurses are educated to minimum standards of competency and safety. Yet, assurance is not reducible to the existence of written standards alone. It also depends on the quality of the relationship between regulators and educators through which standards are developed and enacted. Imbalance in this relationship is evident within international debates around issues such as clinical practice hours, simulation pedagogy, board governance, graduate mobility, and the perceived extension of regulatory authority into curriculum design. This asymmetrical relationship may encourage defensive compliance, risk aversion and self-limiting behaviours among educators that potentially constrains pedagogical innovation and the development of person-centred and place-sensitive curricula that are responsive to local population need and uncertain future practice contexts. In this paper, we argue that the perceived inequality in the regulator-educator relationship is neither inherent nor inevitable. Drawing on Foucault's concept of governmentality, we suggest that through challenging perceptions of regulator dominance, educators have more influence on curriculum design than perceived. This point is developed using Lefebvre's rhythmanalysis to characterise the current regulator-educator relationship as arrhythmic, marked by often unspoken discomfort and disagreement. Recognising that conflict-free alignment between regulator and educator (eurythmia) is an unattainable and unwanted end, we argue instead for a polyrhythmic relationship sustained through what we call 'critical polyvocality'. Cultivating critical polyvocality requires opening positively disruptive dialogical spaces characterised by constructive tensions, mutual respect and shared responsibilities between people. Far from weakening public assurance, we conclude that this constructive disagreement and debate can enable co-production of future-focused, living statements of shared professional expectations that enhance public protection through genuine regulator-educator partnership.