Health care systems as socializing agents: Childbearing the North Thai and Western ways

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to show how two diverse health care systems act as powerful socializing contexts that differentially influence social action related to the same biological phenomenon, child birth, in the same population unit. After a brief description of the alternate health care systems now active in urban North Thailand, the socializing messages that are communicated to maternity clients of the North Thai and Western systems are compared. That is, the aim is to identify the cultural propositions about social roles and action that underlie the operation of the two health care systems, demonstrating that health care systems (1) socialize their agents and clients toward specific attitudes, understandings, beliefs and values about society, health and fertility, and (2) act as instruments of social change and indirect education.