The Case of Mortuary Science Students, Article Review Example

Cahill, Spencer. “Emotional Capital and Professional Socialization: The Case of Mortuary Science Students (and Me).” Social Psychology Quarterly 62(2): 101-116.

The basic focus of this article is on the professional socialization of funeral directors and an attempt to answer the question of how the combination of background, socialization and personality allow some people to succeed in a field repugnant to a majority of the population.

This study is a multi-purpose one that is primarily exploratory and descriptive. Cahill seeks to explore the uncharted territory of professional socialization in mortuary students while painting an in-depth picture of their experience in funeral service school which describes their reactions and emotions to the entire process.

Cahill used his own observations and those of mortuary students in his study. Statistically the students of this community college were representative of the general mortuary student body of community colleges in terms of biographical background and age. He chose to interview 8 students more extensively. I believe the students of this sample are representative enough of the other populations to apply Cahill’s findings on a broader level.

There were no set units of analysis. Cahill strove to paint a portrait of the emotional experiences of the students as they went through their professional socialization so his analysis is appropriate for a research question that dealt with the emotional changes of students entering the professional world.

Participant observation and personal reflection was the primary research design used. This combined with extensive reading on the topics surrounding professional socialization and the role of death in modern society added legitimacy to his claims. He was forced to modify his research in some cases. For example, he was not allowed in the embalming rooms to monitor student/personal reactions so he waited outside the door and recorded the behavior of students as they left embalming class. Throughout his research he maintained a good balance of interview and observation of the students.

The qualitative data was presented in a narrative format and woven in with relevant research in the field. He made some important observations including the importance of biographical information and normalization by community and conversation.

Cahill’s conclusions were well grounded and presented. He concluded that secondary socialization requires primary socialization to precede it and this is what the backgrounds of these students provided them. They already came equipped with the necessary “emotional capital” for their profession which was shaped by their “habitus”- being raised or living for substantial amounts of time around the funeral profession.

Cahill makes an interesting argument for the use of “emotional capital” (a takeoff on Bourdieu’s famous cultural capital) which could be applied to studies on reproduction in other occupations.