ACADEMIC ARTICLES

Karen Flynn has contributed to helping thousands of graduate
students’ research and Development

Karen Flynn has helped many graduates with their research

Caribbean migration to Canada

Migration has long been a feature of Caribbean societies. Created irst as a result of the Atlantic slave trade, and later due to other involuntary forms of migration such as that produced by indentured servitude from India, Caribbean territories such as Trinidad & Tobago, Guyana, Jamaica, Barbados, and Haiti are generally viewed as migration-oriented societies. Emancipation and independence from colonial powers did little to transform the economic and social reality of these societies.

Black Canadian Nurses and Technology

Generally speaking, when feminist scholars conceptualize the meaning of technology for women in relation to paid work in North America, they either view technology as reinforcing social inequality—that is, women are viewed as victims of technology—or they see technology as a mixed blessing.
For the first group, a major concern is how technology reinforces and maintains social inequality, based on race, class, gender, age or other markers of difference. Eileen B. Leonard, for example, points out that “for many women workers developing technologies have yet to deliver as promised . . . it has done little to improve the status of women in the workplace.”

Beyond the Glass Wall: Black Canadian Nurses, 1940-1970

Abstract.

Until the mid-1940s, young Black women who wanted to train asnurses in Canada were prohibited from doing so. The first cohort of BlackCanadian registered nurses integrated Canadian nursing schools begin-ning in the early 1950s. I argue that despite entering an occupation thatdefined itself around Victorian ideals of “true womanhood,” an archetypethat excluded Black women, these nurses were able to negotiate and securea place in the profession. This research not only contributes to Canadiannursing, it also situates Canada, with respect to scholarly discussions aboutthe Black Diaspora.

I’m Glad That Someone Is Telling The Nursing Story2

“I’m glad that someone is telling the nursing story’: Writing Black Women’s History

In 1947,Frieda Parker Steele and Cecile Wright Lemon began nursingtraining at the Hôtel Dieu of the St. Joseph School of Nursing in Windsor,Ontario. That these two young women shared the distinction of being thethird and fourth Black students,respectively,to train at Hôtel Dieu is cer-tainly noteworthy—they were trailblazers. Until the mid-1940s,due to the exclusionary policy of Canadian nursing schools,any young Black womanwho dreamed of becoming a nurse was denied the opportunity.

Lillie Johnson as a Pragmatic Public Intellectual

Upon their arrival in Canada, British-trained Caribbean migrant nurses (including midwives) were shocked to learn that the bodies responsible for nursing in Canada had difficulties adjudicating their foreign credentials. In order to obtain Registered Nurse status in Canada, the nurses had to upgrade
because the “British system” (on which Caribbean nursing education and licensing was based) defined obstetrical and pediatric training as separate qualifications not included in the regular RN stream. Thus, they lacked the crucial component necessary for Canadian licensure. Equally significant, in Johnson’s case in particular, was the prohibition against midwifery practice.