Intimate Outsiders: A Practice Theoretical Ethnography of Child and Family Nurses’ Learning and Work

• In Event: Research Review and Methods in Workplace Learning

Abstract

This paper investigates nurses’ learning as part of their work to support families experiencing serious challenges as parents of young children. An ethnographic study was conducted at the Residential Unit of Karitane in Sydney. Families stay at the Unit for a week and during this time receive 24 hour support, effecting change and disrupting trajectories that place family wellbeing, child health and development at risk. Nurses’ work is conducted within a framework of partnership and is predicated upon learning about each family. This paper traces the forms this learning takes, drawing on practice theory to establish a distinctive sociomaterial account of work and learning.

Author

• Nick Hopwood, University of Technology - Sydney