Self-Image and Occupational Identity: Barbadian Nurses in Post-War Britain

Abstract

During the 1950s and 1960s, many women came to Britain from ‘New Commonwealth’ countries such as Africa, Malaysia and the Caribbean to train as nurses. No records were kept of exactly how many people came or how many stayed, but by the early 1970s some commentators claim that black women formed 25 per cent of the nursing workforce (see Stones, 1972). In spite of their relatively high numbers overall, black nurses have not made inroads into the nursing hierarchy, remaining largely as rank and file members of the profession in low status areas of care such as geriatrics and psychiatry. This has implications in terms of the status of black women in the profession, and in relation to what becomes known about their situation. Absence from both institutional management and the hierarchy of nursing’s professional principal organisation, the Royal College of Nursing, has resulted in virtual invisibility, since it is only at this level that research gets done, articles are published and policy debated.