SOCI 3820 Chapter Notes - Chapter 6: Biomedicine, Acculturation, Welfare Dependency
25 Nov 2013
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Chapter 6 ethnicity and health: social and cultural factors. It has been estimated that since 1990 canada has received on average 200 000 immigrants per year, proportionately more than any other country. The social and cultural construction of health and illness. Sociologist and anthropologists, however, have shown us that health and illness are social constructions; they are not objectively defined. Definitions of health and illness, and understandings of appropriate health care vary over time and across cultures. Furthermore, in any society, some members have more power than others to define health and illness. In canadian society, the dominant cultural model of health and illness is that of biomedicine, and the experts are health professionals, such as doctors. Different cultures have different understandings of health and illness, and people within societies are differentially located with respects to access to expert knowledge in this area. At the beginning of the 20th century, the majority of immigrants came from the united kingdom and.
