Although a limited number of studies have focused on bullying in nursing education to date, all of those studies demonstrate the existence of bullying in clinical settings, where nursing students undertake a significant amount of their nursing education. The purpose of this study was to examine the state of bullying in clinical nursing education among Canadian undergraduate nursing students ( N = 674) in all 4 years of their nursing program. Results suggest that nursing students experience and witness bullying behaviors at various frequencies, most notably by clinical instructors and staff nurses. Third-year and fourth-year students experience more bullying behaviors than first-year and second-year students. Implications for practice include ensuring that clinical instructors are well prepared for their role as educators. Policies must be developed that address the issue of bullying within nursing programs and within health care facilities where nursing students undertake their clinical nursing education.

Findings are discussed in relation to recruitment and retention issues with implications for education, practice, and management.

This article uses a set of strategies designed by Abigail Stewart to guide the generation of knowledge about women and gender to revisit the relationship between nursing and feminism. It is important that nurses be aware of the valuable feminist contributions made by their predecessors in order to uncover the hidden links that exist between nursing and feminism. As long as the relationship between nursing and feminism remains invisible, the gender, problems in nursing that are systemic to a woman's occupation in a male-dominated society will continue.

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