Call for papers: Special issue on equality, diversity and fairness in Medical Education: Critical and International perspectives

call-for-papersSpecial issue on equality, diversity and fairness in Medical Education: Critical and International perspectives

Timeline: proposals due 1st September 2013; submissions due 2013

Guest authors: Dr Maria Tsouroufli and Dr Irene Malcolm, Centre for Medical Education, University of Dundee, Scotland, UK

The journal Medical Education is seeking proposals for papers for a forthcoming issue focused on international perspectives on equality, diversity and fairness to add to this important, area in medical education research. Migration, demographic and socio-economic changes across the world’s population are challenging homogeneity.  For example, in 2008 in the UK:

• 56 per cent of all entrants to medical school (UK domiciled students) were women

• over a quarter (28%) of UK domiciled students offered a place at medical school were from ethnic minority backgrounds. Students from Asian backgrounds made up over two-thirds (69%) of all accepted ethnic minority student.

However, in some countries, persistent exclusions relate, for example, to social class with only 2 per cent of accepted students in the UK from socio-economic class VII, which represents students whose families have manual occupations (Equality and Diversity in Medical Schools, 2009).

Current debates in medical education research that has investigated access, participation and outcomes, highlight ingrained inequalities.  These shed light on the complex nature of professional identities in relation, for example, to doctors’ cultural competences (Dogra and Karnik, 2004), gender differences in academic achievement, (Chaput de Saintonge & Dunn, 2001), discourses of (under)performance among international doctors and ethnic minority groups (Humphrey et al. 2009), and gender discrimination in medical training (Babaria et al. 2011). A key challenge that this issue seeks to address is the need to increase the conceptual sophistication of our accounts of equality and diversity in medical education.   To this end, we seek to introduce new perspectives to the field by bridging the gap between social sciences and medical education research on equality and diversity. We aim to bring to the fore cutting edge research on equality, diversity and fairness in medical education, informed by current theoretical debates and conceptual innovations.  We welcome submissions which will raise critical consciousness (Kumagai and Lypson, 2009) of equality, diversity and fairness in international contexts of medical education and set new research agendas in the field.

We invite theoretically informed papers empirical papers (quantitative, qualitative or mixed-methods research papers) and critical perspectives on any aspect of Equality, Diversity and Fairness in medical education (undergraduate, postgraduate and CPD in medicine) from any country. We particularly welcome submissions which move beyond existing evidence outlining the under-representation and exclusion of particular groups.  Papers which examine any strand of diversity, and, in particular, their intersections in relation to  gender including (masculinities), ethnicity (including whiteness), disability, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, class and religious belief are welcomed. Themes which authors may seek to address include but are not limited to:

Intersection of diversities, Problematization of essentialist concepts of gender in medical education, Critiques of existing research in equality, diversity and fairness in medical education , Marginalisation, belonging and otherness in medical education and the implications for retention and success, Comparative perspectives on inequalities and discrimination in medical education,  Equality and diversities in medical curricula,  Innovative approaches to inclusive medical pedagogies, Diversities, progression and fairness in medical education/training.

Brief proposals (i.e. up to 500 words and up to 4 references) are required and should be sent to med@mededuc.com

 

Dr Kate Sang

Lecturer in Management

School of Management and Languages

Heriot Watt University

0131 451 4208

k.sang@hw.ac.uk

Executive committee member and Acting Chair of the Feminist and Women’s Studies Association

Founding member of Feminist Academics International