Student Corner
The social construction of nursing
Andrew Groome
PP: 044 - 047
Abstract
The struggle that nursing has experienced to gain just status and financial reward can be explained, at least in part, by examining dominant ideologies in Australian society today. For example, such ideologies devalue caring in various ways, and since caring is a basic tenet of nursing, these ideologies ultimately devalue nursing itself.
This paper explores the way in which the image and role of nursing has been socially constructed in light of such hegemonic assumptions.
Keywords
caring, professionalisation, social construction
References
Attridge C and Callahan M (1989) Women in women's work; nurses stress and power, Recent Advances in Nursing 25: 41-69.
Bates C and Lapsley M (1985) Health Machine, Penguin, Sydney.
Benner P and Wrubel J (1989) The Primacy of Caring Addison, Wesley Pub Comp, New York.
Bridges J (1990) Literature review on the images of the nurse and Nursing in the media, Journal of Advanced Nursing 15.
Dalley G (1988) Ideologies of Caring; Rethinking Community and Collectivism, MacMillan, London.
De Young (1985) Dynamics of Nursing, CV Mosby Company, Toronto.
Game and Pringle (eds) (1983) Gender at Work, Allen & Unwin, Sydney.
Gardner H and McCoppin B (1986) Vocation career or both: Politicisation of Australian Nurses - Victoria 1984·86 Australian Journal of Advanced Nursing 4(1).
Lister P (1991) Approaching models of nursing from a post modernist perspective, Journal of Advanced Nursing 16.
Mathew M (1989) Medicine and Daily Life, in Four dimensional Social Space (eds), Jagtenberg T and O'Alton P. Harper & Row Publishers, Sydney.
Melosh B (1982) The Physicians Hand, Temple University Press, Philadelphia.
Meredith C (1987) Anne Conlon memorial Lecture 1986 - Working our way to the bottom; Women and Nursing, Labor History 52, May 1987.
McNanamny S (1986) Nurses work, Nurses worth, Arena 77: 119-128.
Muff J (1982) Handmaiden, Battle axe or Whore. In Socialization, Sexism and Stereotyping (ed) Muff J. Waveland Press, USA.
Oakley A. (1989) Nursing, the issue to come. In Four Dimensional Social Space (eds) Jagtenberg T and O'Alton P. Harper & Row Pub, Sydney.
Ortner S. (1974) Is female to male as nature is to culture? In Women, Culture and Society (ed) Rosaldo M and Lamphere L. Stanford University Press, California.
Orum A (1989) Introduction to Political Sociology, Prentice Hall, London.
Passau-Buck (1982) Caring vs Curing the politics of health care, in Socilization, sexism and stereotyping (ed) Muff J. Waveland Press Inc, USA.
Reverby S (1987) A caring dilemma: womanhood and nursing in historical perspective, Nursing Research 36(1).
Russell G and Schofield T (1989) Professional control, in Four Dimensional Social Space (eds) Jagtenberg T and O'Alton P. Harper & Row Publishers, Sydney.
Turner B (1987) Medical Power and social knowledge, Sage Publications, London.
Speedy S (1987) Feminism and the professionalisation of nursing, The Australian Journal of Advanced Nursing 4(2).
Wearing B (1989) The Role of Gender in Socialization, in Four Dimensional Social Space (eds) Jagtenberg T and O'Alton P. Harper & Row Sydney.
eContent Home
