The Social Basis of Vaccine Questioning and Refusal: A Qualitative Study Employing Bourdieu’s Concepts of ‘Capitals’ and ‘Habitus’

Katie Attwell, Samantha B. Meyer and Paul R. Ward
Additional contact information
Katie Attwell: School of Social Science, University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA 6009, Australia
Samantha B. Meyer: School of Public Health and Health Systems, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON N2L3G1, Canada
Paul R. Ward: College of Medicine and Public Health, Flinders University, Adelaide, SA 5001, Australia

IJERPH, 2018, vol. 15, issue 5, 1-17

Abstract: This article is an in-depth analysis of the social nature of vaccine decision-making. It employs the sociological theory of Bourdieu and Ingram to consider how parents experience non-vaccination as a valued form of capital in specific communities, and how this can affect their decision-making. Drawing on research conducted in two Australian cities, our qualitative analysis of new interview data shows that parents experience disjuncture and tugs towards ‘appropriate’ forms of vaccination behavior in their social networks, as these link to broader behaviors around food, school choices and birth practices. We show how differences emerge between the two cities based on study designs, such that we are able to see some parents at the center of groups valorizing their decisions, whilst others feel marginalized within their communities for their decisions to vaccinate. We draw on the work of philosopher Mark Navin to consider how all parents join epistemic communities that reward compliance and conformity with the status quo and consider what this means for interventions that seek to influence the flow of pro-vaccine information through vaccine-critical social groups.

Keywords: vaccine acceptance; vaccine hesitancy; vaccine refusal; vaccine decision-making; social determinants of health; vaccine delay; vaccine confidence; habitus; social capital (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/15/5/1044/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/15/5/1044/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:15:y:2018:i:5:p:1044-:d:148404

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().