BECOMING A "REAL WOMAN": HISTORICAL ANALYSIS OF THE CHARACTERISTICS, ETHOS AND PROFESSIONAL SOCIALIZATION OF DIPLOMA NURSING STUDENTS IN TWO MIDWESTERN SCHOOLS OF NURSING FROM 1941 TO 1980 (AUTONOMY, WOMEN'S ROLES).
Contributors: Wayne State University.
Published: 1994
Number of pages: 397
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.; Education, History of.; Women's Studies.
Description: This study is about the competing tensions within the discipline of nursing as it has struggled to reach professional status and maturity--a story about nursing students, primarily women, who have sought nursing as an occupation or as a career in fulfillment of their passion to serve humanity and attain personal independence, but at the same time meet societal role expectations as wives and mothers. It is a story of a nursing leadership that strove to prepare these women as qualified professionals in an environment of many competing interests. Finally it is a story about the growth of a women's dominated discipline needing to understand more fully its roots and its relationship to feminism--a discipline needing unity among all nurses, the leadership-elite and the practitioners, in addressing not only nursing's professional issues but women's role issues.

The purposes of this study were to gain a more complete view of the characteristics and aspirations of individuals recruited into nursing; the nature of their professional socialization; and their responses to the socialization process. Primary data sources were 4889 student admission applications. The overall theme of the findings concerns the role prescription for women and how nursing has served as the vehicle for women to use in fulfilling their societal role expectations. The student themes related to choosing nursing were altruism; childhood dream fulfillment; family influence; high school education and work experience; association with the disciplines of science and medicine; career stepping-stone; financial benefits; and fulfillment of women's role prescription. A typology of behaviors exhibited by the students as they responded to the patriarchal social system of the diploma schools included, becoming risk-takers or rebels, astute manipulators or politicos, or victims. Student resistance existed in all decades but the nursing leadership did not begin to value resistive behaviors until the 1970s. The findings give a feminist perspective to why nursing has struggled with the development of assertive, independent, and autonomous behavior of its members--critical behaviors needed if nursing is to become a major player in the re-shaping of the health care system.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 56-02, Section: B, page: 0746.

Thesis (PH.D.)--WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY, 1994.

School code: 0254.