The nursing history of Ngala since 1890: An early parenting organisation in Western Australia

Background: This study was the first phase of a larger study which explored the past, present and future of nursing in early parenting services in Australia. Aim: The aim of this paper is to describe the history of nursing within an early parenting service in Western Australia (WA). Methods: Triangulation of multiple data sources was used to summarise the nursing role over 120 years. The history was discovered through a document analysis of archives, including oral histories, organisational documents, focus groups, nurses’ diaries and interviews with nurses. Findings: The nursing role and context is described over three time periods: 1890–1960; 1960–1990 and 1990–2010. Nursing during the 20th century was influenced by societal and policy changes, but the essence of nursing remained the same with a focus on providing support and education to parents during pregnancy and caring for their babies and young children. Nursing within early parenting up to the 1980s was reasonably static until the move from hospital-based training to the university sector, which was the turning point of change to a new era of professionalisation and ultimately working within an interdisciplinary team. Conclusion: This description of nursing history within one early parenting service has provided insight into this specialist area of nursing

To Live Amongst the Dead: an Ethnographic Exploration of Mass Graves in Cambodia

This thesis uses mass graves as a lens through which to examine how people in contemporary Cambodia use the Khmer Rouge period (1975 – 1979) to reconstitute and re-imagine the world they live in. Based on sixteen months of multisited ethnographic fieldwork, this thesis will argue that the Khmer Rouge regime was a critical event (Das 1997) in Cambodian life, and as such has triggered a re-shaping of relationships between local and the national, and the national and the global, leading to new forms of social and community life and action in post Khmer Rouge Cambodia. As physical markers of violence and political instability, mass graves are inherently political and articulate these re-imaginations on the state, community, and individual level. The Cambodian state exercises and legitimates its authority by constructing modern history in reference to a narrative of liberation from the Khmer Rouge, and the ‘innocent suffering’ of Cambodia and its people, while local communities use Buddhism and animism to narrate and conceptualise the period, bringing it into expected and understandable events within Khmer Buddhist cosmology. These approaches are not necessarily in opposition to one another, but rather represent the overlapping plurality of connections with mass graves. This thesis provides a unique exploration of social relationships to mass graves in Cambodia contributing to debates within the anthropology of politics, violence and collective memory by examining how moments of national mass violence re-shape the state and relationships within it, and how destructive periods of violence nonetheless create new fields for the imagination of the political, the religious, and the social. It also contributes to the emerging field of Cambodian ethnography that combines local considerations with wider national and geo-political discourses and how these are played out at the local level

The Expression of Religious Bias in the Evaluation of Foreign-Trained Job Applicants

This dissertation compromises 2 experiments that investigated religious discrimination as it particularly affects foreign-trained job applicants. Study 1 consisted of a 3 (Applicant’s religion: Christian, Muslim, or No Affiliation) X 2 (Applicant’s location of training: Canada or Cyprus) between-subjects design. After viewing an advertisement for a health-care position, Canadian participants reviewed a male applicant’s CV and watched his taped interview, in which a briefly visible pendant indicated his religious affiliation. The job applicant was then evaluated on two sets of skills: hard (technical) skills and soft (non-technical) skills. As predicted based on the justification suppression model of prejudice (Crandall & Eshleman, 2003), a significant interaction between the applicant’s religion and location of training revealed biases in the evaluation of both sets of skills. While no differences emerged within the Canadian-trained condition, results pointed to significant differences within the foreign-trained condition, such that the Muslim was consistently rated less favourably than the Christian. Study 2 partially replicated the design from Study 1 with the addition of manipulating certification to practice in Canada for the foreign trained applicant. In a 2 (Applicant’s religion: Christian or Muslim) x 3 (Applicant’s location of training: Canada, Certified/Foreign-trained, or Not-certified/Foreign-trained) between-subjects design, Canadian participants evaluated the job applicant on hard skills, soft skills, and hiring recommendation. Findings pointed to an interaction between the applicant’s religion and training on the evaluation of soft skills and hiring recommendation; a main effect of training emerged for evaluation of hard skills. As part of the goal to understand the processes underlying hiring decisions, Study 2 also examined several mediators of the hiring recommendation, and found hard skills, soft skills, respect, and admiration to mediate the link between the religion x training interaction and hiring recommendations. Taken together, the findings point to the complexity of the employment process, and the role of bias in the evaluation of foreign-trained job applicants. Implications for policy and future directions for research are discussed

Speaking as we find: the experience of women workers in Tyneside industry

This study is based on material contained in conversations recorded in 1983- 1984, between the author and nineteen women who worked, or had worked, in industry on Tyneside. The women left school and started work between 1934 and 1981. Their personal expedience is related in the study to published and archival material on the history of women's employment in the north east during the period and to more general issues concerning women and work. Part I deals with the women's experience of entering the world of work, many as shop assistants, and of how they came to move into industry. The limited employment choices open to them are discussed from both a regional and personal perspective. Part II considers the economic and social background to the history of women’s employment in the region during the period covered by the study. Part III explores the women's experience as shop-floor workers, supervisors and shop stewards with particular reference to the clothing and engineering industries. It looks in depth at their experience in 'Jameses', an engineering works, and the effect on workers of its incentive scheme. A chapter describe; the experience of those involved in setting up and working in a women’s clothing manufacturing co-operative. The final chapter draws out some conclusions from the study: how factory work is important to women in ways not previously fully explored; how, although the period 1945-80 offered working class women in the north east greater employment opportunities than before or since, their skills and abilities were not fully used. The major implication of the study is that training for women workers still needs to be taken much more seriously

The Politics and Poetics of Latin American Magical Realism

The phenomenon of the magical realist genre in twentieth century Latin American fiction is the subject of this thesis. Part I, comprising three chapters, considers the theoretical aspects of magical realism. Chapter One traces the genealogy of the critical writing on magical realism, and identifies a number of problems. In Chapter Two, the European and Latin American textual ancestry is established. Chapter Three, dealing with the politics and poetics of magical realism, first lays bare the attributes of both classic realism and surrealism, demonstrating magical realism's dependence on realist methodology in its depiction of 'magical' events, and clarifies its difference from other realisms. Also, in this chapter, a specific postcolonial structure of feeling is identified with magical realist fiction; the consciousness of South and Central American writers has assimilated the culture of both the former coloniser and the colonised, and this co-existence of two contradictory cultures produces the structure of feeling that lies behind magical realism. In part, literature is viewed, effectively, as the practice of the collective socio-political unconscious, and magical realism is conceived as a mode of resistance to the colonially imposed construction of identity. It can also be one of the channels through which non­hegemonic groups appropriate cultural capital. The remainder of this chapter deals with further postmodern characteristics and issues concerning postcolonialism. Part II contains three chapters which are devoted to close textual analysis of the following narratives: The Kingdom of This World by Alejo Carpentier; One Hundred Years of Solitude and 'Innocent Erendira' by Gabriel Garcia Marquez; and The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende

The Evaluation of Immigrants' Credentials: The Roles of Accreditation, Immigrant Race, and Evaluator Biases

Theories of subtle prejudice imply that personnel decision makers might inadvertently discriminate against immigrant employees, in particular immigrant employees form racial minority groups. The argument is that the ambiguities that are associated with immigrant status (e.g., quality of foreign credentials) release latent biases against minorities. Hence, upon removal of these ambiguities (e.g., recognition of foreign credentials as equivalent to local credentials), discrimination against immigrant employees from minority groups should no longer occur. Experimental research largely confirmed these arguments, showing that participants evaluated the credentials of black immigrant employees less favorably only when the participants harbored latent racial biases and the foreign credentials of the applicants had not been accredited. The results suggest the importance of the official recognition of foreign credentials for the fair treatment of immigrant employees.Labour Discrimination, Immigrants, Racial Minorities, Prejudice, Credential Recognition, Experiment

Patient Evaluation of Emotional Comfort Experienced (PEECE): Developing and testing a measurement instrument

Objectives: The Patient Evaluation of Emotional Comfort Experienced (PEECE) is a 12-item questionnaire which measures the mental well-being state of emotional comfort in patients. The instrument was developed using previous qualitative work and published literature. Design: Instrument development. Setting: Acute Care Public Hospital, Western Australia. Participants: Sample of 374 patients. Interventions: A multidisciplinary expert panel assessed the face and content validity of the instrument and following a pilot study, the psychometric properties of the instrument were explored. Main outcome measures: Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis assessed the underlying dimensions of the PEECE instrument; Cronbach’s α was used to determine the reliability; κ was used for test–retest reliability of the ordinal items. Results: 2 factors were identified in the instrument and named ‘positive emotions’ and ‘perceived meaning’. A greater proportion of male patients were found to report positive emotions compared with female patients. The instrument was found to be feasible, reliable and valid for use with inpatients and outpatients. Conclusions: PEECE was found to be a feasible instrument for use with inpatient and outpatients, being easily understood and completed

Supervised workplace learning in postgraduate training: A realist synthesis

This paper presents a realist synthesis of the literature that began with the objective of developing a theory of workplace learning specific to postgraduate medical education (PME). As the review progressed, we focused on informal learning between trainee and senior doctor or supervisor, asking what mechanisms occur between trainee and senior doctor that lead to the outcomes of PME, and what contexts shape the operation of these mechanisms and the outcomes they produce? Methods We followed the procedures outlined in the RAMESES Publication Standards for Realist Synthesis. We searched the English-language literature published between 1995 and 2017 for empirical papers related to informal workplace learning between supervisor and trainee, excluding formal interventions such as workplace-based assessment. We made a pragmatic decision to exclude general practice training to keep the review within manageable limits. Results We reviewed 5197 papers and selected 90. Synthesis revealed three workplace learning processes occurring between supervisors and trainees, each underpinned by a pair of mechanisms: supervised participation in practice (entrustment and support seeking); mutual observation of practice (monitoring and modelling), and dialogue during practice (meaning making and feedback). These mechanisms result in outcomes of PME, including safe participation in practice, learning skills, attitudes and behaviours and professional identity development. Contexts shaping the outcomes of these mechanisms were identified at individual, interpersonal, local and systems levels. Conclusions Our realist theory of workplace learning between supervisors and trainees is informed by theory and empirical research. It highlights the two-way nature of supervision, the importance of trainees’ agency in their own learning and the deleterious effect of fragmented working patterns on supervisor–trainee learning mechanisms. Further empirical research is required to test and refine this theory. In the meantime, it provides a useful framework for the design of supportive learning environments and for the preparation of supervisors and trainees for their roles in workplace learning