Mastery of Mothering Skills and Satisfaction with Associated Health Services: An Ethnocultural Comparison

The author examines the mastery of mothering skills and satisfaction with associated health services between women of two distinct ethnocultural groups -- Anglophone Euro-Canadian and Anglophone Afro-Caribbean -- who recently gave birth in Montreal. His overall aim is to discern differentials in the mastery of mothering skills and associated satisfaction with maternal and child health services. His study is framed by neo-Weberian social theory suggesting that modernization and bureaucratization increasingly eviscerate everyday skills and knowledge. These processes also lead to changes regarding what is considered credible 'authoritative knowledge.' He found that older Anglophone Euro-Canadians expressed the greatest skill deficits. They attempted to redress these deficits through consultation of professionally authored books, medical Web sites and health professionals. Older Anglophone Euro-Canadians saw these resources as sources of 'authoritative knowledge.' They also expressed dissatisfaction with related health services. In contrast, Anglophone Afro-Caribbeans and younger lower-income Anglophone Euro-Canadians expressed satisfaction with their skills. This derived from widespread previous experience with children and more extensive and readily available kith and kin networks. These were considered sources of 'authoritative knowledge' in this group. This group expressed less dissatisfaction with health services, as they did not need, or expect, these services to redress skill deficits.

Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry

Vol. 33

no. 3

343-365

September 2009

en