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Nursing the Status: The Construction of Work and Social Class Identity

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Towards a Sociology of Nursing

Abstract

This chapter brings into discussion some of the consequences of nursing education. Educational systems are commonly related to the reproduction of structures and institutions that perpetuate inequalities. By using an ethnographic lens, it is discussed that while establishing nursing training in the academe, the education system mirrors, and indeed reproduces, social-class transformations of the profession and of society more broadly. Academisation has not been able to prevent or further question social inequalities, becoming a mechanism that perpetuates historical class-based differences, and hindering nurses’ individual growth. In the case study being used, class-based distinctions surface in the form of a socially constructed otherness between university-trained nurses and auxiliary nurses. While this breaks up the nursing profession, considering social class as a differentiating mechanism could be useful.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium

    Ricardo A. Ayala

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  1. Ricardo A. Ayala
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Correspondence to Ricardo A. Ayala .

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Ayala, R.A. (2020). Nursing the Status: The Construction of Work and Social Class Identity. In: Towards a Sociology of Nursing. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-8887-3_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-8887-3_3

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore

  • Print ISBN: 978-981-13-8886-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-981-13-8887-3

  • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

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