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Gendered Care Work of Special Education in Taiwan : the Caregivers¡¦ Accounts

The purpose of this essay is to explore a common situation of special education in Taiwan. Paraprofessionals, mostly consist of women, are asked to afford most care works for disabled children under the institution of special education. As men join as paraprofessionals to take care responsibilities, duties may be distributed by gender categorization. Moreover, care routines for children in the practice of daily life are divided into educational and caring matters which also much influence the partnerships between teachers and paraprofessionals.
Based on the Institutional Ethnography, that emphasize through problematic daily experiences of those actors, to find how the institution to govern their relationships in the hidden domination, author has adopted in-depth interview of sixteen paraprofessionals and five teachers, moreover, engaged in participant observations to analyze where the caring practice reoccur and how much the influence of power of the institution to represent the relationships differentiated between these actors according to their gender and professional degree in the classroom.
This study reveals, first, that women are shaped to be perfect care workers for disabled bodies, they also satisfy with mothering imagination through daily practice. Second, a few men join to be care workers only for a short period. To maintain traditional masculinity, caring experiences of men in the classroom are presented within stereotypical practice associated with gender stereotypes. At the same time, gender division of work can well keep men from the accusation of sex violation. Third, professionalism is the important factor influencing the interactions and negotiations between those actors who engaged in the special education institution. Furthermore, care works in this regard are distinguished into a dichotomy of body/ mind care responsibilities, and it may reshape the hierarchy inside the women.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:NSYSU/oai:NSYSU:etd-1110111-042346
Date10 November 2011
CreatorsHuang, Xiu-wen
ContributorsChia-Ling Wu, Wen-hui anna Tang, Mei-hua Chen
PublisherNSYSU
Source SetsNSYSU Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Archive
LanguageCholon
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext
Formatapplication/pdf
Sourcehttp://etd.lib.nsysu.edu.tw/ETD-db/ETD-search/view_etd?URN=etd-1110111-042346
Rightsunrestricted, Copyright information available at source archive

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