NO MORE FEARS, PEERS TALK TO PEERS: ACTIVIST NURSING INQUIRY.
Contributors: University of Colorado Health Sciences Center.
Published: 1995
Number of pages: 331
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.; Psychology, Developmental.
Description: The goals of this research were to unveil power relations inherent in menarche education and adult-adolescent relations, investigate ways in which ideology is communicated, and document the development of knowledge, empowerment and caring through activist inquiry. The product of the deconstruction was the co-operative development and production of a twenty-seven minute long menarche educational video: No more fears: Peers talk to peers. The co-researchers developed an analysis of relational learning and investigated the complicating issues of race and class, as they interact with gender.

The research was conducted in a Western United States inner-city high school-based health center and investigated the experience of menarche, the implicit and explicit messages communicated by menarche education, the perceived adequacy of menarche education, and the experience of the ten women who participated in the co-creation of knowledge and co-operative change. Data was analyzed collectively and recyled to other women. Validity was addressed through triangulation of data collection methods, reflexivity, and authentic collaboration between co-researchers. The co-operative inquiry group collectively developed an analysis that girls are inadequately educated, cannot identify mentors on whom to rely for support and practical assistance, and are paralyzed by embarrassment about menstruation.

The group reconstructed menarche education in a discussion format, in which practical knowledge consisted of sharing menarche stories, empirical knowledge included demonstrations of anatomy and physiology and menstrual care, and emancipation was the freedom for women to share BodyTalk. The long-term health implications of activist nursing inquiry were discussed.

Activist nursing inquiry included and extended quantitative and qualitative nursing research, synthesized caring theories with co-operative, feminist and action research methods, and translated feminist process (Wheeler and Chinn, 1991) into inquiry methodology.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 56-05, Section: B, page: 2558.

Thesis (PH.D.)--UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO HEALTH SCIENCES CENTER, 1995.

School code: 0831.