Using institutional ethnography in higher education to examine the medicalization of mental health and disability: Challenges and successes

Introduction: Students who identified as experiencing ‘mental distress’ during their academic journey have been on the rise, including their requests for academic accommodation to support their learning towards academic success. Currently, very little work has been done which examines the medicalization of health science students with ‘mental distress’ and the use of academic accommodation from a critical institutional and structural analysis perspective.

Methods: Institutional ethnography was used to help interrogate the structures of governances that are inscribed in higher learning institutions and the medicalization process for students seeking and accessing academic accommodation in a health science program (nursing). Institutional ethnography is a unique sociological approach that provides a powerful tool to examine the everyday world experience of doing and working and critically examine how it is coordinated through text-mediated ruling apparatuses.

Results: This paper will explore the synergy and challenges of using institutional ethnography as a form of inquiry at two higher-learning educational institutions in Ontario, Canada. As a critical qualitative researcher, I have a dual role as a researcher and a nursing faculty member at a higher educational institution. A discussion of the successes, unforeseen challenges, and lessons learned related to data collection (interviews and observations), data analysis (mapping, indexing, analytical writing), and managing the insider/outsider perspective in using institutional ethnography as a method of inquiry will be shared.

Conclusion: The goal is to provide insights and strategies to support and enhance future researchers in using institutional ethnography as a method of inquiry in the higher-learning educational setting.