Health Care's Forgotten Majority: Nurses and Their Frayed White Collars [Hardcover]

Jacqueline Goodman-Draper (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 30, 1995

Discussion regarding health care in the United States usually centers around the doctors and insurance companies. This book deals with one group that is largely overlooked: nurses. As an example of white collar workforce, nurses are segmented by class. Amongst this group is a class-conscious working class, a status-conscious nursing management and a class- and status-conscious mid-level. This book focuses on nurses' positions in the labor process and their reaction to that labor process, their choice of collective strategy (trade unionism, professional unionism, or professionalization), and why they choose these roles.

Editorial Reviews

Book Description

How the changing health care system and the class struggle affect the nursing population of the United States.

About the Author

JACQUELINE GOODMAN-DRAPER is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at State University of New York, Potsdam College.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: Praeger (July 30, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0865692483
• ISBN-13: 978-0865692480
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,603,762 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A timely interpretation, March 22, 2010

By 

demystify (California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Health Care's Forgotten Majority: Nurses and Their Frayed White Collars (Hardcover)

This book is situated within the sociology of work literature, and provides an interesting analysis on the factors that influenced middle class workers' choice of collective organization of the 1990's. Specifically, the author investigates why nurses might join trade unions or professional associations. She argues that their objective class position affects the development of their subjective ideologies, and their subsequent choice of collective organization. It gets interesting as the author looks at those workers in "contradictory class positions" -- which influences their contested ideology.

Well worth the read for those interested in understanding the relationship between class and ideology.

3.0 out of 5 stars Contemporary Sociology. 1996. Vol. 25, Iss. 3; p. 416, April 2, 2010

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workingforchange (Montreal) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Health Care's Forgotten Majority: Nurses and Their Frayed White Collars (Hardcover)

"...Goodman-Draper's Health Care's Forgotten Majority is a class analysis of nurses. The author locates nursing within larger historical transformations in the organization of work, namely the rise of the white collar workforce and professionalization. The central argument of the book is that nursing is a class stratified occupation and that, based on differentiated positions in production, nurses create distinct ideologies of professionalization and competing strategies of collective organization.

Goodman-Draper differentiates nurses' class position along dimensions of "economic", "political", and "ideological" control, resulting in a stratification into "high", "medium", and "low" positions. Nursing administrators rank highest in that they have the most control over the organization of production, have greater supervisory authority, and have greater control over the immediate work and its conceptualization. Mid-level administrators are in the most contradictory position, having some of the characteristics of higher management and some of the characteristics of staff nurses, who have the least amount of control on all three dimensions...

... The value of Goodman-Draper's book lies in its effort to examine systematically these internal divisions as well as the relationships among class position, professional ideologies, and collective means of empowerment."

4.0 out of 5 stars Labor History Book Review; Fall96, Vol. 37 Issue 4, p584-585,, March 24, 2010

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Reviewer "reviewer" (New Jersey) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Health Care's Forgotten Majority: Nurses and Their Frayed White Collars (Hardcover)

"....Dr.Goodman-Draper's analysis of nurses' conditions of work in large bureaucratic organizations is extremely well done, with careful analysis and illumination of the situation, captured by the position of nursing within the labor force. Dr.Goodman Draper is to be commended on her excellent in depth analysis of nursing within Wright's framework. Her findings are significant for both nursing and in the broader context of heath care delivery systems."

Labor History Book Review; Fall 1996