IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v61y2005i10p2190-2200.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The social trajectory of illness: Autism in the ultraorthodox community in Israel

Author

Listed:
  • Shaked, Michal

Abstract

Severe or chronic illness-related events present patients and their family members with a physically and socially changed reality. In analyzing 30 open-ended interviews of ultraorthodox Jewish Israeli mothers of children with autism, this paper addresses the general question of one childhood disorder's social trajectory and examines in particular mothers' efforts to promote their children's re-inclusion into the community. The illness narratives reveal the mothers' role as mediators between the child and the community, educating the child in religious praxis on the one hand and striving to bend social norms regarding this praxis to permit inclusion on the other. Despite these daily efforts, the ultraorthodox community challenges these children's status, and mothers turn to religious discourse to establish the status of the child with autism as an able Jewish individual. In utilizing spiritual discourse in daily activities, mothers only employ those cultural elements that advance the child's integration, thus further constructing small changes in religious themes. The findings highlight not only the mothers' role as mediators, but also their potential ability to set in motion processes of change.

Suggested Citation

  • Shaked, Michal, 2005. "The social trajectory of illness: Autism in the ultraorthodox community in Israel," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 61(10), pages 2190-2200, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:61:y:2005:i:10:p:2190-2200
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277-9536(05)00190-5
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Garro, Linda C., 1994. "Narrative representations of chronic illness experience: cultural models of illness, mind, and body in stories concerning the Temporomandibular Joint (TMJ)," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 38(6), pages 775-788, March.
    2. Daley, Tamara C., 2004. "From symptom recognition to diagnosis: children with autism in urban India," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 58(7), pages 1323-1335, April.
    3. Landsman, Gail, 2003. "Emplotting children's lives: developmental delay vs. disability," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 56(9), pages 1947-1960, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Wei-Ju Chen & Zihan Zhang & Haocen Wang & Tung-Sung Tseng & Ping Ma & Lei-Shih Chen, 2021. "Perceptions of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) Etiology among Parents of Children with ASD," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(13), pages 1-10, June.
    2. Coleman-Brueckheimer, Kate & Spitzer, Joseph & Koffman, Jonathan, 2009. "Involvement of Rabbinic and communal authorities in decision-making by haredi Jews in the UK with breast cancer: An interpretative phenomenological analysis," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 68(2), pages 323-333, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lonardi, Cristina, 2007. "The passing dilemma in socially invisible diseases: Narratives on chronic headache," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 65(8), pages 1619-1629, October.
    2. Werner-Lin, Allison & Forbes Shepherd, Rowan & Young, Jennifer L. & Wilsnack, Catherine & Merrill, Shana L. & Greene, Mark H. & Khincha, Payal P., 2022. "Embodied risk for families with Li-Fraumeni syndrome: Like electricity through my body," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 301(C).
    3. Sirpa Sarlio-Lähteenkorva, 2001. "Weight Loss and Quality of Life among Obese People," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 54(3), pages 329-354, June.
    4. Prussing, Erica & Sobo, Elisa J. & Walker, Elizabeth & Kurtin, Paul S., 2005. "Between 'desperation' and disability rights: a narrative analysis of complementary/alternative medicine use by parents for children with Down syndrome," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 60(3), pages 587-598, February.
    5. Landsman, Gail H., 2006. "What evidence, whose evidence?: Physical therapy in New York State's clinical practice guideline and in the lives of mothers of disabled children," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 62(11), pages 2670-2680, June.
    6. Nilika Mehrotra & Shubhangi Vaidya, 2008. "Exploring Constructs of Intellectual Disability and Personhood in Haryana and Delhi," Indian Journal of Gender Studies, Centre for Women's Development Studies, vol. 15(2), pages 317-340, May.
    7. Dassieu, Lise & Kaboré, Jean-Luc & Choinière, Manon & Arruda, Nelson & Roy, Élise, 2020. "Painful lives: Chronic pain experience among people who use illicit drugs in Montreal (Canada)," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 246(C).
    8. Green, Sara Eleanor, 2007. ""We're tired, not sad": Benefits and burdens of mothering a child with a disability," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 64(1), pages 150-163, January.
    9. Raspberry, Kelly Amanda & Skinner, Debra, 2011. "Negotiating desires and options: How mothers who carry the fragile X gene experience reproductive decisions," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 72(6), pages 992-998, March.
    10. Rasmussen, Pernille Skovbo & Pedersen, Inge Kryger & Pagsberg, Anne Katrine, 2020. "Biographical disruption or cohesion?: How parents deal with their child's autism diagnosis," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 244(C).
    11. Inge M Brokerhof & Jan Fekke Ybema & P Matthijs Bal, 2020. "Illness narratives and chronic patients’ sustainable employability: The impact of positive work stories," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(2), pages 1-17, February.
    12. Madden, Sue & Sim, Julius, 2006. "Creating meaning in fibromyalgia syndrome," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 63(11), pages 2962-2973, December.
    13. Eaves, Emery R., 2015. "“Just Advil”: Harm reduction and identity construction in the consumption of over-the-counter medication for chronic pain," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 147-154.
    14. Liliana Tapia Guillen & Marco A Solis Bravo & Lilia Albores Gallo & Yassel Flores Rodriguez & Ofelia Roldan Ceballos & Romina Erika Aguerre Estevez & Jimena Martin Salas, 2019. "Autism Spectrum Disorders in an Upper-Middle Income Country," Global Journal of Intellectual & Developmental Disabilities, Juniper Publishers Inc., vol. 6(2), pages 36-42, March.
    15. Daley, Tamara C. & Weisner, Thomas & Singhal, Nidhi, 2014. "Adults with autism in India: A mixed-method approach to make meaning of daily routines," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 142-149.
    16. Sayyed Ali Samadi, 2020. "Parental Beliefs and Feelings about Autism Spectrum Disorder in Iran," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(3), pages 1-13, January.
    17. Travers, Michele Kerry & Lawler, Jocalyn, 2008. "Self within a climate of contention: Experiences of chronic fatigue syndrome," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 66(2), pages 315-326, January.
    18. Ha, Vu Song & Whittaker, Andrea & Whittaker, Maxine & Rodger, Sylvia, 2014. "Living with autism spectrum disorder in Hanoi, Vietnam," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 278-285.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:61:y:2005:i:10:p:2190-2200. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.