| |
Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
 | |
|
The meaning of stigma
— identity construction in two old-age institutions | | Author(s) | Tova Gamliel, Haim Hazan |
| Journal title | Ageing and Society, vol 26, part 3, May 2006 |
| Pages | pp 355-371 |
| Source | http://www.journals.cambridge.org/jid_ASO |
| Keywords | Residents [care homes] ; Care homes ; Sheltered housing ; Personality ; Attitudes to the old of general public ; Comparison ; Israel. |
| Annotation | People in advanced old age with frailties and those who are resident in old-age institutions manage their identities within the constraints of stigmatised settings. This paper compares the processes of identity construction in an old-age home and in a sheltered housing project for older people in Israel. Applying a symbolic-interactionist perspective that sees old-age institutions as social arenas for the reconstruction of identity, the paper first distinguishes the residents' constructions of stigma and deviance. While the old-age home residents collectively turned their stigma into a source of positive labelling, the sheltered housing residents drew advantages from their previous roles and statuses. Gossip is shown to play a critical role in reproducing stigma, particularly in the old-age home. These findings are used to demonstrate the variability and potential for adaptation among the residents - who are often stereotyped as homogeneous and passive. The paper concludes with a discussion of the literal and metaphorical languages used by older people, and of stigma as a positive instrument that can introduce content into the definition of the self. (KJ/RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-060511202 A |
| Classmark | KX: KW: KLA: DK: TOB: 48: 7H6 |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
|
| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
| |
|