Incorporating Holistic Midwifery into University Midwifery Education

The development of University Midwifery Education
Programs (UMEPs) has been a key component of the
midwifery professionalization process in Ontario and
British Columbia. The choice to develop UMEPs has set
a standard for professional midwifery training.
The goal of this study is to highlight the gendered
struggles of midwifery, as a female dominated
and historically marginalized occupational group, in
its attempt to integrate into pre-existing
hierarchies of the university structure. Specific
challenges of this process include tensions around
inter-professional collaboration and faculty sharing
with dominant disciplines such as Health Sciences
and/or Medicine,enculturation of masculine/feminine
professional characteristics, struggles to value
practicum learning components, visibility/obscurity
within the university, struggles for achieving
diversity in the student/client population, gendered
dimensions of earnings potential and labour
im/mobility. Similarly located marginalized groups
attempting integration into a university structure
are likely to experience similar exclusionary
measures related to factors including gender,
sexuality, ethnicity and race.

Autorentext

Carolina Crewe has an MA in Women's Studies from Mount Saint
Vincent University in Halifax NS, and is a PhD candidate in
Women's Studies at York University in Toronto, ON, Canada.
Carolina is a single mother to two boys and enjoys spending time
exploring Toronto with them. Carolina also writes memoir,
creative non-fiction and screenplays.

Klappentext

The development of University Midwifery Education
Programs (UMEPs) has been a key component of the
midwifery professionalization process in Ontario and
British Columbia. The choice to develop UMEPs has set
a standard for professional midwifery training.
The goal of this study is to highlight the gendered
struggles of midwifery, as a female dominated
and historically marginalized occupational group, in
its attempt to integrate into pre-existing
hierarchies of the university structure. Specific
challenges of this process include tensions around
inter-professional collaboration and faculty sharing
with dominant disciplines such as Health Sciences
and/or Medicine,enculturation of masculine/feminine
professional characteristics, struggles to value
practicum learning components, visibility/obscurity
within the university, struggles for achieving
diversity in the student/client population, gendered
dimensions of earnings potential and labour
im/mobility. Similarly located marginalized groups
attempting integration into a university structure
are likely to experience similar exclusionary
measures related to factors including gender,
sexuality, ethnicity and race.