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Who perpetuates sex role socialization? The changing image of the professional nurse educator from traditionalist to cycle-breaker: A qualitative interview study
Abstract
This dissertation explores the extent to which present day nursing education reflects its tradition-bound subservient roots. The purpose of this study was to identify behavioral phenomena which influence the perpetuation of sex-role socialization from teacher to student in the traditional milieu of nursing education. Using feminist and nursing literature as a theoretical base, the review of the literature revealed a dismal portrait of self perceived inferiority, oppression, and male domination of nurse educators in the academic environment. In contrast, the researcher found nurse educators do not succumb to environmental pressures. They do not conform to the feminine traits as defined in the review of the literature but are enthusiastic, confident, dedicated women who do not perpetuate the monastic military milieu or the rites of initiation in nursing. Nor do they socialize students into the doctor-nurse game or perpetuate the learned feminine traits of submission, passivity, conformity, and dependence. Through in-depth interviews containing 107 open-ended questions, 42 nurse educators in Massachusetts and California described their personal experience with sex-role socialization as a woman, as a student nurse, and as a teacher. Crosstabulation contingency tables compared question responses in cell categories by (1) individual response, (2) state, (3) academic agency, (4) type of nursing program from which they graduated, and (5) type of nursing program within which they are currently teaching. Computation of means, t-tests, and Chi Square demonstrated no significant statistical difference in this nurse educator population for the five categories. The type of school they graduated from or the type of program they are currently teaching do not matter. After maturation, these 42 nurse educators present the same profile of a dynamic, competent, hard-working professional, concerned for the influence she has on students and on the nursing profession. This study has determined that these women are positive role-models and cycle-breakers, encouraging students to be assertive, creative practitioners. This dissertation found that oppressive forces of sex-role socialization are not perpetuated by these 42 nurse educators but by others in the health care system. Implications for further research suggest that other members in the health care system be interviewed to ascertain who is responsible for perpetuating the feminine behaviors encountered in clinical agencies.
Subject Area
Nursing|Health education|Womens studies
Recommended Citation
Boyle, Clara Willard, "Who perpetuates sex role socialization? The changing image of the professional nurse educator from traditionalist to cycle-breaker: A qualitative interview study" (1990). Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest. AAI9022667.
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations/AAI9022667