IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v270y2021ics0277953621000101.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

“It was as if I wasn't there” – Experiences of everyday racism in a Swedish medical school

Author

Listed:
  • Kristoffersson, Emelie
  • Rönnqvist, Hanna
  • Andersson, Jenny
  • Bengs, Carita
  • Hamberg, Katarina

Abstract

The aim of this study was to explore and analyze how cultural/ethnic minority students at a Swedish medical school perceive and make sense of educational experiences they viewed as related to their minority position. We interviewed 18 medical students (10 women, and 8 men), who self-identified as coming from minority backgrounds. Data were collected and analyzed simultaneously, inspired by constructivist grounded theory methodology. The concepts ‘everyday racism’ and ‘racial microaggressions’ served as a theoretical framework for understanding how inequities were experienced and understood. Participants described regularly encountering subtle adverse treatment from supervisors, peers, staff, and patients. Lack of support from bystanders was a common dimension of their stories. These experiences marked interviewees' status as ‘Other’ and made them feel less worthy as medical students. Interviewees struggled to make sense of being downgraded, excluded, and discerned as different, but seldom used terms like being a victim of discrimination or racism. Instead, they found other explanations by individualizing, renaming, and relativizing their experiences. Our results indicate that racialized minority medical students encounter repeated practices that, either intentionally or inadvertently, convey disregard and sometimes contempt based on ideas about racial and/or cultural ‘Otherness’. However, most hesitated to name the behaviors and comments experienced as “discriminatory” or “racist”, likely because of prevailing ideas about Sweden and, in particular, medical school as exempt from racism, and beliefs that racial discrimination can only be intentional. To counteract this educational climate of exclusion medical school leadership should provide supervisors, students, and staff with theoretical concepts for understanding discrimination and racism, encourage them to engage in critical self-reflection on their roles in racist power relations, and offer training for bystanders to become allies to victims of racism.

Suggested Citation

  • Kristoffersson, Emelie & Rönnqvist, Hanna & Andersson, Jenny & Bengs, Carita & Hamberg, Katarina, 2021. "“It was as if I wasn't there” – Experiences of everyday racism in a Swedish medical school," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 270(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:270:y:2021:i:c:s0277953621000101
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.113678
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953621000101
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.113678?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. Ghorashi, Halleh & Sabelis, Ida, 2013. "Juggling difference and sameness: Rethinking strategies for diversity in organizations," Scandinavian Journal of Management, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 78-86.
    2. Maina, Ivy W. & Belton, Tanisha D. & Ginzberg, Sara & Singh, Ajit & Johnson, Tiffani J., 2018. "A decade of studying implicit racial/ethnic bias in healthcare providers using the implicit association test," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 199(C), pages 219-229.
    3. Ford, Chandra L. & Airhihenbuwa, Collins O., 2010. "The public health critical race methodology: Praxis for antiracism research," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 71(8), pages 1390-1398, 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. Held, Suzanne & Hallett, John & Schure, Mark & Knows His Gun McCormick, Alma & Allen, Sarah & Milne-Price, Shauna & Trottier, Coleen & Bull Shows, Brianna & Other Medicine, Lucille & Inouye, Jillian, 2019. "Improving chronic illness self-management with the Apsáalooke Nation: Development of the Báa nnilah program," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 242(C).
    2. Malat, Jennifer & Mayorga-Gallo, Sarah & Williams, David R., 2018. "The effects of whiteness on the health of whites in the USA," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 199(C), pages 148-156.
    3. Annette Risberg & Hervé Corvellec, 2022. "The significance of trying: How organizational members meet the ambiguities of diversity," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(6), pages 1849-1867, November.
    4. Richard A. Hunt & Mathew L. A. Hayward, 2018. "Value Creation Through Employer Loans: Evidence of Informal Lending to Employees at Small, Labor-Intensive Firms," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 29(2), pages 284-303, April.
    5. Ossenkop, Carolin & Vinkenburg, Claartje J. & Jansen, Paul G.W. & Ghorashi, Halleh, 2015. "Ethnic identity positioning at work: Understanding professional career experiences," Scandinavian Journal of Management, Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 515-525.
    6. Silvia Marcu, 2018. "Refugee Students in Spain: The Role of Universities as Sustainable Actors in Institutional Integration," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(6), pages 1-21, June.
    7. D'Costa, Ieta & Truong, Mandy & Russell, Lynette & Adams, Karen, 2023. "Employee perceptions of race and racism in an Australian hospital," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 339(C).
    8. Rosanne van Kommer & Joke Hermes, 2022. "Aspiring to Dutchness: Media Literacy, Integration, and Communication with Eritrean Status Holders," Media and Communication, Cogitatio Press, vol. 10(4), pages 317-327.
    9. Janet Johansson & Janne Tienari & Alice Wickström, 2023. "The power and burden of representing diversity in a performing arts organization: A recognition‐based approach," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(6), pages 2014-2032, November.
    10. Emily Brown Weida & Pam Phojanakong & Falguni Patel & Mariana Chilton, 2020. "Financial health as a measurable social determinant of health," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(5), pages 1-14, May.
    11. Scott, Darius, 2022. "Uncaring landscapes and HIV peer support in the rural Southern United States," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 292(C).
    12. Holck, Lotte & Muhr, Sara Louise, 2017. "Unequal solidarity? Towards a norm-critical approach to welfare logics," Scandinavian Journal of Management, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 1-11.
    13. Hicken, Margaret T. & Kravitz-Wirtz, Nicole & Durkee, Myles & Jackson, James S., 2018. "Racial inequalities in health: Framing future research," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 199(C), pages 11-18.
    14. 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.
    15. Janssens, Maddy & Zanoni, Patrizia, 2014. "Alternative diversity management: Organizational practices fostering ethnic equality at work," Scandinavian Journal of Management, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 317-331.
    16. Khosla, Natalia N. & Perry, Sylvia P. & Moss-Racusin, Corinne A. & Burke, Sara E. & Dovidio, John F., 2018. "A comparison of clinicians' racial biases in the United States and France," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 206(C), pages 31-37.
    17. Mai Chi Vu & Nicholas Burton, 2024. "Beyond the Inclusion–Exclusion Binary: Right Mindfulness and Its Implications for Perceived Inclusion and Exclusion in the Workplace," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 191(1), pages 147-165, April.
    18. Mathur, Vani A. & Morris, Theresa & McNamara, Kelly, 2020. "Cultural conceptions of Women's labor pain and labor pain management: A mixed-method analysis," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 261(C).
    19. van Amsterdam, Noortje & van Eck, Dide, 2019. "“I have to go the extra mile”. How fat female employees manage their stigmatized identity at work," Scandinavian Journal of Management, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 46-55.
    20. Quinn, Katherine G. & Edwards, Travonne & Johnson, Anthony & Takahashi, Lois & Dakin, Andrea & Bouacha, Nora & Voisin, Dexter, 2023. "Understanding the impact of police brutality on Black sexually minoritized men," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 334(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:270:y:2021:i:c:s0277953621000101. 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.