Exploring the Challenges of Incorporating Holistic Midwifery into the University Midwifery Education Structure in Ontario and British Columbia

Abstract

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 which it is anticipated subsequently legislated provinces in Canada will follow.

The goal of this study is to highlight the gendered struggles of midwifery, as a femaledominated

and historically marginalized occupational group, in its attempt to integrate

into preexisting hierarchies of the university structure. This analysis has suggested that

other similarly located marginalized groups attempting integration into a university

structure are likely to experience similar exclusionary strategies related to factors

including gender, sexuality, ethnicity and race. Evident from this study are specific

challenges of this process including 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 mobility. Recommendations from the findings of this study

encourage future education design committees to take into consideration the economic,

cultural, material and ideological barriers and challenges facing women in the context of

practice as the predominant applicants, professionals and clients for this profession.