Abstract
Type 2 diabetes mellitus is a disease that has trebled in incidence over the last 25 years,
affecting both adults and increasingly children. The rapid increase of the disease mirrors the
gradients of social position and income distribution, and parallels the accelerated
environmental changes witnessed with the rise of neoliberal capitalism. This research situates
neoliberal capitalism as a collection of political and economic policies that form an ideology
suited to protect discrete elite interests. The current ideology has permeated all social aspects
of society, including education and healthcare. Therefore, it is argued that the practice of
healthcare and the education of healthcare students are shaped by the sociopolitical
environment in which they exist.
Ten best-selling postsecondary textbooks in pathology, pathophysiology, and disease
processes were selected for content analysis to determine if the interpretation of type 2
diabetes in pathophysiology textbooks reflects neoliberal thinking. The data were interpreted
within the tradition of critical discourse analysis and theoretically enriched using Foucault’s
descriptions of governmentality, biopolitics, and discursive formations.
The results indicate that notions consistent with neoliberal capitalism permeate pathology
textbooks in the understandings of type 2 diabetes. Consistent with how neoliberal thought
embodies and explicates social conditions, type 2 diabetes is described in a way that stresses
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self-responsibility and culpability for falling ill. The texts also impart the importance of
biomedical industry interventions for the treatment of the sick and the surveillance of the
healthy. Finally, in a way that substantiates the degradation of the environment and
retrenchment of social welfare policies, the textbooks fail to make any reference to the
ecological factors that contribute to type 2 diabetes, including urbanisation and the
propagation of food deserts, environmental toxins, income inequality, the steepening of the
social gradient, and the deleterious effects of globalisation on human nutrition.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TORONTO/oai:tspace.library.utoronto.ca:1807/35902 |
| Date | 08 August 2013 |
| Creators | McCleave, Sharon |
| Contributors | Quarter, Jack |
| Source Sets | University of Toronto |
| Language | en_ca |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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