Section A
Title: Women at work 'You can't have a conversation with a feather duster' The meaning of work to a Working Mother
Author: Katherine Rees
Date of Publication/completion:
Publisher or Source: Collins Educational
Section B
Katharine Rees's aim was to try to decipher the main reasons why women return to work soon after childbirth and to present a picture of the attitudes of British women on the subject of work. Another aim was to discover why women often return to lower status jobs than they previously held before childbirth.
The type of data that was collected was qualitative which is favoured by interpretivist approach. Informal interviews were carried out on a stratified sample of 10 women in a period of six weeks. She accessed them through family members and work associates and set up the interview via the phone. The women interviewed were of white British origin and came from a 'nuclear family'. The study focused on three main sectors of the workplace (three from each sector): Manual labour, clerical work and jobs of a professional status, and one was a service woman. To help with the construction Rees used interview schedules from Goldthorpe's study. The interviews used open and semi-structured questions which allowed the participant to answer in more detail, and meant the interviewer could obtain more personal information and develop the questions. She recorded the responses by note taking. A pilot study was undertaken and enabled the researcher to edit many of her answers and adapt her techniques for example; she discovered that her own feminist personal bias could influence the women's answers. One assumes anonymity and confidentiality were upheld throughout the research and the women were aware of their right to withdraw.
Title: Women at work 'You can't have a conversation with a feather duster' The meaning of work to a Working Mother
Author: Katherine Rees
Date of Publication/completion:
Publisher or Source: Collins Educational
Section B
Katharine Rees's aim was to try to decipher the main reasons why women return to work soon after childbirth and to present a picture of the attitudes of British women on the subject of work. Another aim was to discover why women often return to lower status jobs than they previously held before childbirth.
The type of data that was collected was qualitative which is favoured by interpretivist approach. Informal interviews were carried out on a stratified sample of 10 women in a period of six weeks. She accessed them through family members and work associates and set up the interview via the phone. The women interviewed were of white British origin and came from a 'nuclear family'. The study focused on three main sectors of the workplace (three from each sector): Manual labour, clerical work and jobs of a professional status, and one was a service woman. To help with the construction Rees used interview schedules from Goldthorpe's study. The interviews used open and semi-structured questions which allowed the participant to answer in more detail, and meant the interviewer could obtain more personal information and develop the questions. She recorded the responses by note taking. A pilot study was undertaken and enabled the researcher to edit many of her answers and adapt her techniques for example; she discovered that her own feminist personal bias could influence the women's answers. One assumes anonymity and confidentiality were upheld throughout the research and the women were aware of their right to withdraw.