Nursing inquiry
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Historical Article
The influence of gender, ethnicity, class, race, the women's and labour movements on the development of nursing in Sri Lanka.
The paper reveals that historically various socio-political factors, including gender, class, ethnicity, race, waves of colonization, decolonization, the civil and ethnic wars, the women's and labour movements, have influenced the development of nursing in Sri Lanka. However, literature presenting the development of nursing in Sri Lanka is sparse. All relevant journals and books published in the English and Sinhalese languages on nursing in Sri Lanka between the years 1878-2011 were examined. ⋯ Being non-British was a key issue in terms of race. Further, the shift from a colonized state to a welfare state resulted in a class shift from upper middle class to middle and lower class persons entering into nursing. Although there is a paucity of information available in the nursing literature, this analysis offers an intriguing insight into an angle that may be used to examine the influence of gender, ethnicity, class, race and the women's and labour movements in other contextual situations.