IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v309y2022ics0277953622005391.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Lower-class origin professionals in Canadian health and social service professions: “A different level of understanding”

Author

Listed:
  • Beagan, Brenda L.
  • MacLeod, Anna
  • Owen, Michelle
  • Pride, Tara M.
  • Sibbald, Kaitlin R.

Abstract

As health and social service professions increasingly emphasize commitments to equity, advocacy and social justice, non-traditional entrants to the professions increasingly bring much-needed diversity of social backgrounds and locations. Long the domain of elite social classes, the professions are not always welcoming cultures for those from lower social class backgrounds. This paper draws on notions of material, social and cultural capital, along with habitus, to examine the experiences of professionals with lower-class backgrounds, in educational programs and in their professions. The critical interpretive qualitative study draws on interviews with 27 professionals across Canada in medicine, nursing, social work and occupational therapy. While participants were clearly set apart from their colleagues by class origins, which posed distinct struggles, they also brought valuable assets to their work: enhanced connection and rapport with clients/patients, approachability, structural analysis and advocacy, plus nuanced re-envisioning of professional ethics to minimize power dichotomies. Rather than helping lower-class entrants adapt to the professions, it may be more beneficial to alter normative professional cultures to better suit these practitioners.

Suggested Citation

  • Beagan, Brenda L. & MacLeod, Anna & Owen, Michelle & Pride, Tara M. & Sibbald, Kaitlin R., 2022. "Lower-class origin professionals in Canadian health and social service professions: “A different level of understanding”," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 309(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:309:y:2022:i:c:s0277953622005391
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2022.115233
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953622005391
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.socscimed.2022.115233?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Beagan, Brenda L., 2000. "Neutralizing differences: producing neutral doctors for (almost) neutral patients," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 51(8), pages 1253-1265, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Keshet, Yael & Popper-Giveon, Ariela, 2017. "Neutrality in medicine and health professionals from ethnic minority groups: The case of Arab health professionals in Israel," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 174(C), pages 35-42.
    2. Leyerzapf, Hannah & Verdonk, Petra & Ghorashi, Halleh & Abma, Tineke A., 2018. "“We are all so different that it is just … normal.” Normalization practices in an academic hospital in the Netherlands," Scandinavian Journal of Management, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 141-150.
    3. Babaria, Palav & Abedin, Sakena & Berg, David & Nunez-Smith, Marcella, 2012. "“I'm too used to it”: A longitudinal qualitative study of third year female medical students' experiences of gendered encounters in medical education," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 74(7), pages 1013-1020.
    4. MacFife, Bex, 2022. "“There is no standard vulva”: Sanitized vs. contextualized instruction of hands-on medical skills," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 297(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:309:y:2022:i:c:s0277953622005391. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.