Nilsson Kerstin, Larsson Ullabeth Sätterlund
School of Life Sciences, University of Skövde, Skövde, Sweden.
J Nurs Manag. 2005 Mar;13(2):179-86. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2934.2004.00504.x.
Gender can be seen as a construction in which history, culture and social relation are central. Thus, the construction remains strong can be explained by the fact that the existing conceptions about gender are continually passed on. It is not known how conceptions about gender in the context of Swedish health care are expressed by head nurses or what significance the conceptions have for their leadership.
To study head nurses' statements about their conceptions of gender and what significance these conceptions have in carrying out their work.
Thematic interviews were held with 36 head nurses, and the contents of the transcribed interviews were analysed.
The results showed conceptions about men's direct and women's roundabout ways of communicating. Statements were also made concerning how men are oriented towards technical matters and women towards relationships, and how men are expected to show what they can do to a greater extent than women. These conceptions have an effect on head nurses in their work, as they are expected to live up to them. As we wished to obtain variation in the respondents' statements about gender, we conducted an interview study. Hence, the transferability of the findings is a question of conceptualization, and the conceptions we recorded cannot be seen as representative for all head nurses. The results imply, however, that greater awareness about conceptions of gender may promote greater equality in women's and men's careers and allow greater freedom to head nurses to do what they themselves feel they should do instead of what they are expected to do.
性别可被视为一种以历史、文化和社会关系为核心的建构。因此，这种建构依然强大，这一现象可由现有性别观念不断传承的事实来解释。目前尚不清楚瑞典医疗保健领域中护士长如何表达其性别观念，以及这些观念对其领导工作有何意义。
研究护士长关于其性别观念的表述，以及这些观念在其工作开展过程中的意义。
对36名护士长进行了主题访谈，并对访谈记录内容进行了分析。
结果显示出关于男性沟通方式直接而女性沟通方式迂回的观念。还出现了关于男性关注技术问题而女性关注人际关系，以及男性比女性更倾向于展示自身能力的表述。这些观念在护士长的工作中产生了影响，因为她们被期望符合这些观念。由于我们希望受访者关于性别的表述具有多样性，所以开展了一项访谈研究。因此，研究结果的可转移性是一个概念化的问题，我们记录的观念不能被视为代表所有护士长。然而，结果表明，提高对性别观念的认识可能会促进男女职业发展的更大平等，并给予护士长更大的自由去做他们自己认为应该做的事情，而不是去做被期望做的事情。
