School of Culture, Media, and Society
School of Culture, Media, and Society
Associate Professor, Sociology
School of Culture, Media, and Society
Abbotsford campus
Phone: 604-504-4732
email MichaelNew to UFV in 2019, Mike Corman’s areas of study include aging, health and caregiving work, medical sociology, information and communication technologies, public health and health inequalities, health care reform and restructuring, and qualitative research methods. Past projects include: exploring the experiences of familial caregivers caring for elderly persons in Qatar and their work practices, a multidisciplinary funded project on Inter-professional Education in Healthcare in Qatar, two inter-related projects that sought to explore dementia services in Northern Ireland, and a project that aimed to develop a quality-of-life measurement tool for people with disabilities and their families. Currently, Dr. Corman is a co-investigator on a multidisciplinary funded study that explores the impact of online therapy for individuals experiencing difficulties with substance use, including opioid use.
Michael Corman is an Associate Professor in the School of Culture, Media, and Society at the University of the Fraser Valley (UFV). Prior to coming to UFV, he held teaching/research positions in Canada, Qatar, and the United Kingdom; travelling around the world and was able to teach sociology in a diversity of contexts.
Teaching and research interests include a variety of topics that intersect with the sociological study of health, illness, and society. Michael is a passionate educator; his goal as a sociology professor is to act as a facilitator in getting students to think sociologically about the world around them. In doing so, he aims to help students think critically about society and the people in it, and to recognize opportunities for meaningful and justice-oriented change.
He has taught a variety of courses, including: Introduction to Sociology, Sociology of Health and Illness, Sociology of Aging, Sociology of the Family, Media and Society, Digital Society, Qualitative Research, Deviant Group Behaviour, Mass Communications, Research Methods, and Contemporary Sociological Theory.
Since 2012, Michael have participated in a variety of research projects totaling over $1,200,000 CDN. His research has appeared in Perspectives on Medical Education, Social Theory & Health, Symbolic Interaction, The Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, Qualitative Health Research, the International Journal of Educational Research, Families in Society: The Journal of Contemporary Social Services, and the International Journal of Social Sciences. Also, he recently published a book through the University of Toronto Press entitled, Paramedics on and off the streets: Emergency medical services in the age of technological governance.
Kearney, G. P, Gormley, G. J., Johnson, J. L., Hart, N. D., & Corman, M. K. (2024). “We lie about what we do. We lie to our students about what they’re going to do”: Unstandardizing standardized ways of knowing in health professions education. Social Science & Medicine – Qualitative Research in Health, 5. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssmqr.2023.100368. Published as part of a special issue – The Sociology of Health Professions Education.
Quilty L, C., Wardell J,D., Garner, G., Elison-Davis, S., Davies, G., Klekovkina, E., Corman, M., Alfonsi, J., Crawford, A., de Oliverira, C., Weekes, J. (2022). Peer support and online cognitive behavioural therapy for substance use concerns: Protocol for a randomised controlled trial. BMJ Open 2022(12:e064360). doi: 10.1136/ bmjopen-2022-064360
Corman, M. K.(2017). Paramedics On and Off the Streets: Emergency Medical Services in the Age of Technological Governance. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Corman, M. (2023). Lights and Sirens: The Critical Condition of EMS in Alberta. Parkland, Institute, The University of Alberta. Available at: https://www.parklandinstitute.ca/lights_and_sirens. (Peer Reviewed).
Davidson, G., Irvine, R., Corman, M., Kee, F., Kelly, B., Leavey, G., & McNamee, C. (2017). Measuring the Quality of Life of People with Disabilities and their Families: Scoping Study Final Report.
Kearney, G. P., Corman, M. K., Johnston, J. L., Hart, N. D., & Gormley, G. J. (2023). Towards accountability-centred practices: governance in OSCEs subordinating patient and practitioner clinical experience. Advances in health sciences education: Theory and Practice, 10.1007/s10459-023-10238-7
Seim, J., Corman, M., & McCann, L. (2022). Producing paramedicine: Case studies in the medical labor process. Social Science & Medicine, 309. https://doi-org.proxy.ufv.ca:2443/10.1016/j.socscimed.2022.115231
Kearney, G., Corman, M., Johnston, J., Hart, N., & Gormley, G. (2019). Why Institutional Ethnography? Why Now? Institutional Ethnography in Health Professions Education. Perspectives on Medical Education, 8(1), 17-24. DOI: 10.1007/s40037-019-0499-0
Kearney, G., Corman, M., Gormley, G., Hart, N., Johnston, J., & Dorothy Smith. (2018). Institutional Ethnography: A Sociology of Discovery – In Conversation with Dorothy Smith. Social Theory & Health, 16(3), 292-306. DOI: 10.1057.s41285-018-0077-2
Kearney, G., Johnston, J., Hart, N., Corman, M., & Gormley, G. (2018). Protocol: Exploring the Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) Using Institutional Ethnography. International Journal of Educational Research, 88, 42-47.
Corman, M. K. (2018). Titrating the rig: How paramedics work in and on their ambulance. Qualitative Health Research, 28(1), 47-59. doi.org/10.1177/1049732317739266
Corman, M. K. (2018). Driving to work: The front seat work of paramedics to and from the scene. Symbolic Interaction, 41(3), 291-310. DOI: 10.1002/symb.335
Corman, M. K. (2016). Street medicine: Assessment work strategies of paramedics on the front lines of emergency health services. The Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 46(5), 600-623 DOI: 10.1177/0891241615625462
Corman, M. K. (2013). How mothers talk about placement of their child with autism outside the home. Qualitative Health Research, 23(10), 1320-1332. DOI: 10.1177/1049732313505225
Corman, M. Using Composites to Craft Institutional Ethnographic Accounts. In Handbook of Institutional Ethnography (2020), edited by P. Luken & Suzanne Vaughan. Palgrave.
Corman, M.K., & Barron, G. (2017). “Institutional ethnography and actor-network theory – In dialogue.” Pp. 47-68 in Perspectives On and From Institutional Ethnography (Studies in Qualitative Methodology, Volume 15), edited by J. Reid & L. Russell. Bingley, United Kingdom: Emerald Group Publishing.
Corman, M. K., & Melon, K. (2014). “What counts? Managing professionals on the front lines of emergency services.” Pp. 148-176 in Under New Public Management: Institutional Ethnographies of Changing Front-line Work, edited by A. Griffith & D. E. Smith. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Frank, A., Corman, M. K., Lawton, P., & Gish, J. (2010). “Healer/patient interaction: New mediations in clinical relationships.” Pp. 34-52 in Handbook on Qualitative Health Research, edited by I. L. Bourgeault, R. DeVries & R. Dingwall. Thousands Oak, CA: Sage.