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Chinese women in white : a study of nurses in Taiwan

The work started when I first registered as a part time Postgraduate student at Warwick, after finishing my MSc degree in medical sociology at Bedford College, London University in October 1982. Some preliminary investment had been done and a few essays written while I was in Taiwan teaching in a medical school. But it was only after April 1985, when I secured a grant from the Chinese Central Government in Taiwan to come over to England again and switched to full time study that the real work could really start. Since then, many parts of the work have been changed, such as the target problems and the methodology to tackle them. The whole working process was dynamic. Ideas exchanged, floating to and fro between my supervisor, Professor Margaret Stacey and me over years to find out results, as well as problems and methods. Only the original purpose of the study (Chinese women) and the sample group (nurses) have remained the same and still fascinate me. The problems were focussed gradually. The process of emergence of the problems and the conceptual framework used in the study will be described in part 1: introduction. The methodology changed in response to the focusing of the problems. Both the original plan and the evolving current design will be presented in Part 2: the research process. The field work and data analysis will be also dealt with in the same part. Some further but small alterations away from the research pIan were made to adjust to the situation of the field work as it happened in practice. Part 3 will be the results of the historical and literature review. The literature review gave me a more clear and closer look at my sample against their background of Chinese women's life in the past (chapter 8) and at the present day in Taiwan (chapter 10). Also traditional Chinese women healers and carers and the modern nursing history (chapter 9) were brought to light to elucidate the problems in nursing today. Part 4 will be the emergent themes which were attained through analysis of the field work. From these themes, a general profile of the life of these women in our sample in present day Taiwan gradually emerged. In part 5 conclusions are drawn concerning 'the new patriarchy', in which our respondents' lives are formed, as always around their menfolk – father, husband and son - although with certain differences from the situation in the past.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:235736
Date January 1989
CreatorsLiu, Zhongdong
PublisherUniversity of Warwick
Source SetsEthos UK
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeElectronic Thesis or Dissertation
Sourcehttp://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/88811/

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