Identity, Gender, and Tracking: The Reality of Boundaries for Veterinary Students

Jenny R. Vermilya

Jan 2022 · Purdue University Press

About this ebook

Using in-depth interviews with veterinary students, Identity, Gender, and Tracking: The Reality of Boundaries for Veterinary Students explores the experience of enrollment in an educational program that tracks students based on the species of animals that they wish to treat. The identity of a veterinarian is one characterized by care; thus, students have to construct different definitions of care, creating a system of power and inequality. Tracking produces multiple boundaries for veterinary students, which has consequences not just for the veterinarian, but also for the treatment of animals. Written for administrators and students alike, Identity, Gender, and Tracking sheds light on how and why veterinary students construct their identities and end up in certain specializations.

About the author

Dr. Jenny R. Vermilya is an assistant professor on the clinical teaching track in the sociology department at the University of Colorado Denver. Vermilya’s expertise and professional interests center on gender and professions, symbolic interactionism, qualitative methods, and animals and society. Her writing about the horse slaughter controversy in the United States appeared in Psychology Today’s blog Animals and Us: The Psychology of Human-Animal Interactions. Most recently, her coauthored research on police shootings of dogs appeared in We Are Best Friends: Animals in Society.