Migrating for a profession: becoming a Caribbean nurse in post-WWII Britain

Youths from the Global South migrating for further education often face various forms of discrimination. This Caribbean case study discusses how conditions in the home country can provide a foundation for educational migration that helps the migrants overcome such obstacles and even develop a strong sense of agency and self-empowerment. In the post-WWII period, numerous Caribbean women trained in nursing at British hospitals that have been described as marred by race and gender related inequality and associated forms of exploitation. Yet, the nurses interviewed about this training emphasised its high quality and downplayed the problems encountered. This positive attitude, it is argued, must be understood in the light of the key ideological role of education, particularly for a profession, as an avenue of social and personal mobility in the late-colonial Caribbean societies and the ways in which it enabled these Caribbean women to stake out a new life for themselves.