Session 7: The Politics of Nursing
Session 7: The Politics of Nursing
Outline of session
This session will consider issues of power and politics as they relate to the development of the nursing profession
Session leader
Christine Hallett
Aims
To consider how power relations with both other medical professions, and with governments, both local and national have impinged on the development of nursing as a profession
To examine Nurse Registration as a key political event in the development of nursing
Content of the session
The development of hospital nursing as a discipline subordinate to hospital medicine in the second half of the nineteenth century
The Nurse Registration debate and the Nurses Registration Act of 1919
Nurse radicalism in the 1930s
The impact of the NHS on nursing
The introduction of General Management into the NHS in the 1980s and its impact on nursing in both hospital and community
Teaching methods to be used
Pre-reading, tutorial and seminar presentations
Indicative reading
Abel-Smith, B. (1960) History of the Nursing Profession. Heinemann, London.
Baly, M. (1986) Florence Nightingale and the Nursing Legacy. Croom Helm, London.
Baly, M. (1995) Nursing and social change. Third edition. Routledge, London.
Davies, C. (1978) Four events in nursing history. A new look. Nursing Times Occasional Papers. 74. 17. 65-68.
Davies, C. (1980) Rewriting Nursing History. Croom Helm, London.
Davies, C. (1995) Gender and the Professional Predicament in Nursing. Open University Press. Buckingham
Davies, C; Beach, A. (2000) Interpreting Professional Self-Regulation. A History of the United Kingdom Central Council for Nursing. Routledge, London.
Foucault, M, (1973 transl.) The Birth of the Clinic. Tavistock Publications, London.
Gamarnikow, E. (1991) Nurse or woman: gender and professionalism in reformed nursing, 1860-1923. In Holden, P. and Littlewood, J. (eds.) Anthropology and nursing. Routledge, London.
McGann, S. (1992) The Battle of the Nurses. A study of eight women who influenced the development of professional nursing, 1880-1930. Scutari Press, London.
Rafferty, A.M. (1996) The Politics of Nursing Knowledge. Routledge, London.
Rafferty, A.M. (1996) Nursing, medicine, quackery and health care reform. Nursing Research. 45. 3. 190-191.
Reverby, S. (1998) Ordered to Care. The Dilemma of American Nursing, 1850-1945. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge.
Salvage, J. (1985) The politics of nursing. Heinemann. London.
White, R. (1976) Some political influences surrounding the Nurse's Registration Act 1919. Journal of Advanced Nursing. 1. 209-217.
Wilson, H. (2001) Power and partnership: a critical analysis of the surveillance discourses of child health nurses. Journal of Advanced Nursing. 36. 2. 294-301.
Witz, A. (1990) Patriarchy and Professions: the gendered politics of occupational closure. Sociology. 24. 675-690.
