Contextual Determinants of Choice and Access to Medical Studies: An International Perspective

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

This symposium focuses on inequalities of access to medical studies across four countries: France, the USA, the UK and Sweden. It takes advantage of national differences in the institutional arrangements influencing access to higher education (HE) and medical schools to explore their effects on students’ choices and admissions. The proposed international comparison will also highlight similarities and differences due to the ways in which each system rewards prospective students’ cultural, social and economic capitals. These different elements will allow a better understanding of forces that contribute to the lack of social and ethnoracial diversity among physicians – a situation which is problematic in terms of social justice and because of its impact on reaching and working with patients from underrepresented minorities.

Sub Unit

• Division I - Education in the Professions

Chair

• Agnes van Zanten, SciencesPo/CNRS

Papers

• Creating a Class of Medical Students in France: A Contextual Perspective on Students' Choices and Admissions - Agnes van Zanten, SciencesPo/CNRS; Alice Olivier; Léon Marbach, Sciences Po; Audrey Chamboredon, Sciences Po; Christophe Birolini

• Understanding the Relative Importance and Monetary Value of Factors That Influence U.S. Medical Students' Career Choices - Marc Louis Ruggiano, University of Virginia

• Applicant Perspectives on the Selection of Medical Students From Diverse Backgrounds in the United Kingdom: Results From the U.K. Medical Applicant Cohort Study - Katherine Woolf, University College London

• At the Crossroads of Possibilities and Preferences: Determinants and Consequences of Aspirations for Medical Programs in Sweden - Emil Bertilsson, Uppsala University; Yann Renisio, Sciences Po

Discussant

• Laura W. Perna, University of Pennsylvania