ABSTRACT
As was apparent in our informants’ observations, change in the knowledge fields – and in the curriculum – took three main forms. Firstly, the structure of the knowledge field might itself be taking new shape. Nursing studies is a relative newcomer to higher education and is in the process of establishing its structure, and is currently divided between a science-based self-conception (or a hard, pure knowledge base), and one that is more communicative and self-reflective (soft applied Jervis, 1996). However, the established disciplines, too, have a dynamic structure that is expressing itself in the curriculum. The science-based fields are subject to a tacit responsiveness to extramural interests, especially of the global economy and also to changing instrumentation. For example, lasers and optic fibres have come into electronic engineering. The humanities, on the other hand, find a dynamic internal to knowledge as such: history, for example, has become more sociological in character.
