Abstract
Role differentiation, integral to the development of occupational therapy, a professionalising occupation, is influenced by gender, and influences the identification of the profession's body of knowledge. This work is a case study of the development of occupational therapy in New Zealand, from the days when one person was the practitioner, the teacher and the governmental advisor, through to the time when most of the roles commonly found within professions exist.
The major contribution of the thesis is in understandings of the development of a mainly female professional group whose practice was largely confined to employment in the state health-care sector, as opposed to independent, private practice. The experience of this profession provides a valuable point of comparison for the existing literature on profession, which is largely based on the study of male-dominated, independent practitioners. The work extends the literature on the professions adding the identification and definitions of roles within a profession. The research suggests development of control of these roles within a professionalising occupation is strongly affected both by gender and social context, so that developments result from a combination of intrinsic and extrinsic factors. The thesis also identifies key differences between professional activities and employment activities in organisations; and suggests that making the differences explicit may reduce intraprofessional discord.
The thesis defines professional workspan (a term created to capture the duration of paid work within a profession or industry) and role respect (mutually acceptable views of the other's legitimate functions), two new concepts to the literature of professions and organisational studies. I elaborate the process of role differentiation, and the phases of role blindness, role recognition and role reticence, which are also new expressions to describe observable processes. These terms may contribute to understandings about change and its management.
The thesis contributes to occupational therapy knowledge in New Zealand, as the first major piece of work that records, analyses, and explains events and themes over the growth of the profession in New Zealand.
The work is interpretive, drawing on case methods, as well as acknowledging feminist and reflective processes. I was a member of the profession prior to and throughout the research.
The research was undertaken through examination of a range of resources related to the profession: ten oral histories of purposively selected participants who had occupied a range of roles, analysis of the Association's archives, including annual general meeting minutes from its founding in 1948 to 2000, analysis of the contents of the journal of the Association, 1948.-2000, minutes of the Registration Board, 1952-2000, and conference handbooks 1953-2000.
Archives of the Association and publicly accessible archives related to government activities were accessed and analysed as were other serendipitously or historically acquired documents and publications. Analysis was undertaken through the creation of a time line and a glossary of roles, identification of who was writing what for the journal, and reflection on my responses to episodes that, with hindsight, seemed to be inappropriate or unwise. Some comparative material from other countries and other professions was sourced.
As the professional workspan increased so did the opportunities for education permitting postregistration and now postgraduate education. I argue that the profession always had a body of knowledge and use the work of Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger & Tarule (1986) as a schema for understanding the processes and factors that shaped the development of a recorded body of knowledge. The roles identifiable for individuals and in organisations have grown since the 1940s. A glossary of roles (with a structure based on the work of Houle, 1981) is provided.
The work offers the profession a way of understanding the past and particularly decisions made at critical times, and has offered me meaning and sense in the construction of my own occupation, or career. The work will facilitate the use of specific strategies to diminish residual barriers to the development of research practice in women's or other emerging professions.