Pregnancy and childbirth hold broader cultural and societal implications and entail more than simply a natural event. Today, these otherwise natural phenomena are driven by the development of ...surveillance medicine in a risk-averse society. This affects how both healthcare professionals and women perceive medicalisation and is influencing changes in clinical practice surrounding childbirth.
The aim of the study was to explore the phenomenon of the medicalisation of pregnancy and childbirth in Slovenia as perceived and experienced by healthcare professionals, namely midwives and obstetricians.
A descriptive phenomenological approach was used. A purposive sample included 16 midwives and 4 obstetricians working in perinatal healthcare. The data were collected using in-depth, semi-structured, one-to-one interviews and analysed using the phenomenological methodology approach proposed by Colaizzi.
The two professional groups are well aware of the medicalisation of pregnancy and childbirth, yet there are some differences in experiencing these phenomena. This is revealed with respect to three identified themes: (1) medicalisation as a social construct; (2) unrecognised importance of evidence-based practice in changing medicalised care; and (3) the dimensionalities of the Caesarean section.
Our study suggests woman-centred care that supports autonomy should be more strongly promoted and strategies supporting women with different childbirth preferences developed. The findings also show interprofessional collaboration should be further explored since midwives’ autonomy and participatory decision-making in clinical settings is encountering some unresolved issues within the scope of midwifery practice that affect their professionalism.
The present study examined predictors of the intention to become vaccinated against Covid-19 among the Slovenian public. A cross-sectional, non-probability sample was collected through an online ...survey in March and April 2020(N = 826; Mage=33.2 years). We tested four groups of predictors: demographic and socioeconomic characteristics, health status and political (left–right) orientation.Our ordinal regression model explained 44% of the variance in Covid-19 vaccine hesitancy. All six predictors had a significant impact on vaccine hesitancy, which was significantly higher among women, among 30–39-year-olds, the less educated,the self-employed and unemployed, those reporting excellent self-rated health and those with a centrist political orientation (followed by right-oriented respondents).Implications of the results are discussed.
Cultural capital, originally a general sociological concept, has been transformed into a construct that is often applied in predicting scholastic attainment. Intellectual ability (IQ) has also been ...proven to be a strong, although basically psychological, predictor of educational attainment. However, these strands of research have hardly been contrasted in terms of their predictive power and in terms of their potential interaction. In the current study of Slovenian secondary school students, the results indicated that both constructs had statistically significant predictive power, both as to attainment and as to transition into type of secondary education. Results also indicated that: both constructs were fairly robust, as their predictive power remained statistically significant even after control variables were entered into the model; and they operated independently as results indicated no interaction between these constructs. The 'return' on cultural capital was greater for students whose parents had lower educational status.
The purpose of the study was to compare the predictive power of three sets of determinants in Civic Voluntarism Model (CVM) on three dimensions of citizen participation. We analysed a representative ...sample of Slovenian Youth 2010 study (N = 1,257, M
age
= 22.5 years, 48.8 % female). Results indicated that 1) CVM explained the largest amount of variance in protest participation (25 %), followed by conventional participation (17 %), and civic participation (8 %); 2) political culture and social networks models were separately the strongest explanatory models, while resources model was the weakest; 3) political interest, female gender, postmaterialist values, more frequent church attendance and discussions of politics with parents all had a significant positive impact on two out of three citizen participation dimensions of Slovenian youth. Implications of the results are discussed in terms of the democratic theory and the future of democratic consolidation processes in post-communist countries.
The article examines the medicalization of pregnancy and childbirth and the tendency to humanize or demedicalize childbirth. The concept of childbirth dramatically changed in Western countries over ...the last century. Pregnancy and childbirth were still considered to be a natural phenomenon at the beginning of the 20th century. In the second half of the 20th century, which coincides with more intense development of gynaecology and obstetrics and the related technology, pregnancy and childbirth became the subject of the jurisdiction of medicine. Medicalization in Peter Conrads terms is a process by which non-medical problems become defined as medical, which is also related to the implementation of medical interventions. A descriptive research method was used to perform a literature review related to the medicalization of pregnancy and childbirth. In addition to a general overview of the theme, the review focused on the Slovenian context. Discussions about the medicalization of pregnancy and childbirth and natural childbirth create ambivalence, since technological advances also help to save lives. The feminist critique sees the medicalization of pregnancy and childbirth in the function of control over womens bodies and reproduction. The process of humanization therefore focuses on woman and her ability to make independent decisions related to pregnancy and childbirth. Through the literature review, it is indicated that there is a need for further empirical research to explain more clearly the interweaving of these two perspectives, especially in Slovenia, where such studies are extremely limited.
The article examines the medicalization of pregnancy and childbirth and the tendency to humanize or demedicalize childbirth. The concept of childbirth dramatically changed in Western countries over ...the last century. Pregnancy and childbirth were still considered to be a natural phenomenon at the beginning of the 20th century. In the second half of the 20th century, which coincides with more intense development of gynaecology and obstetrics and the related technology, pregnancy and childbirth became the subject of the jurisdiction of medicine. Medicalization in Peter Conrad's terms is a process by which non-medical problems become defined as medical, which is also related to the implementation of medical interventions. A descriptive research method was used to perform a literature review related to the medicalization of pregnancy and childbirth. In addition to a general overview of the theme, the review focused on the Slovenian context. Discussions about the medicalization of pregnancy and childbirth and natural childbirth create ambivalence, since technological advances also help to save lives. The feminist critique sees the medicalization of pregnancy and childbirth in the function of control over women's bodies and reproduction. The process of humanization therefore focuses on woman and her ability to make independent decisions related to pregnancy and childbirth. Through the literature review, it is indicated that there is a need for further empirical research to explain more clearly the interweaving of these two perspectives, especially in Slovenia, where such studies are extremely limited. Adapted from the source document.
The article examines the medicalization of pregnancy and childbirth and the tendency to humanize or demedicalize childbirth. The concept of childbirth dramatically changed in Western countries over ...the last century. Pregnancy and childbirth were still considered to be a natural phenomenon at the beginning of the 20th century. In the second half of the 20th century, which coincides with more intense development of gynaecology and obstetrics and the related technology, pregnancy and childbirth became the subject of the jurisdiction of medicine. Medicalization in Peter Conrad’s terms is a process by which non-medical problems become defined as medical, which is also related to the implementation of medical interventions. A descriptive research method was used to perform a literature review related to the medicalization of pregnancy and childbirth. In addition to a general overview of the theme, the review focused on the Slovenian context. Discussions about the medicalization of pregnancy and childbirth and natural childbirth create ambivalence, since technological advances also help to save lives. The feminist critique sees the medicalization of pregnancy and childbirth in the function of control over women’s bodies and reproduction. The process of humanization therefore focuses on woman and her ability to make independent decisions related to pregnancy and childbirth. Through the literature review, it is indicated that there is a need for further empirical research to explain more clearly the interweaving of these two
perspectives, especially in Slovenia, where such studies are extremely limited.
This article examines the introduction of the final examination as an external national system of assessment of students in the transition from secondary school to university education. Since 1991 ...Slovenia has followed foreign models, the British one in particular; however, it has also considered its own traditional system of education. Students take the final examination (the matura) in three compulsory and two elective subjects; of which sociology can be one. A case study considering this subject demonstrates how external assessment can be fine tuned using internally supervised and assessed project work, in which seminar essays are produced. This article conducts a qualitative and quantitative analysis of the essays and structured questions forming the written examination; the same procedure is applied in the case of seminar essays. Also included are the opinions and experiences of students regarding their preparations for the final examination and their work in the seminars; the students' feedback is decidedly positive. So far, the external and the internal results have shown little correlation, a fact that points to certain problems in the final examination assessment system. The positive results in sociology, considered in this contribution, suggest that it would be worthwhile applying similar assessment strategies in other subjects. It is, however, impossible to provide a straightforward answer to the question of a positive impact of the final examination on the desired improvement in the quality of the education process.
Understanding patterns of political participation of ethnic minorities is crucial for their integration within postcommunist European countries most of which are ethnically complex and with histories ...of conflicts. Past research on the relationship between political participation and ethnicity in the democracies has given mixed results and there seems to be a research gap in the literature regarding the patterns of political participation of minorities in postcommunist states. The present study examined differences on two measures of political participation in a representative sample of post-Yugoslav citizens. Employed data source was the South-East European Social Survey Project (SEESSP), fielded in 2003 and 2004. The SEESSP covered six former Yugoslav entities (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, FYR Macedonia, Kosovo, Montenegro, and Serbia). Results indicated that ethnic minorities had lower levels of electoral participation in four out of six analysed political entities, and had lower levels of party membership in three countries. In addition, a significant voter turnout gap existed among different minorities within individual countries. Finally, no major differences in motives behind political participation were found when comparing the association between authoritarian attitudes and political participation within majority and minority groups. Implications of the results are discussed. Adapted from the source document.
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