Stigmatization, Essay Example

This article is about stigma in an era of medicalisation and anxious parenting. Further, it shows how proximity and culpability shape middle-class parents’ experiences of disgrace. The study investigates how middle class parents respond to situations classified as stigma. These parents’ children are afflicted with medical issues categorized as behavioral, physical and psychological. In many societies children with behavioral problems are stigmatized and this could be traumatic to parents who have to face society with the shame of an apparently dysfunctional child (Francis, 927).

The purpose of this article is to share information derived from a qualitative study consisting of interviews recruiting 34 mothers and 21 fathers. The reason for the study was to gather scientific data regarding how parents feel and deal with the stigmatization of their children due to the medical diagnoses and actual condition. The authors discovered that there were two types of stigmas. They relate to courtesy and that of being a bad parent. With respect to the bad parent philosophy stigmatization premise, researchers could not clearly establish reasons for parents being stigmatized as ‘bad’ simply because their children have been stigmatized. Courtesy stigmatization is a label society places on children with some degree of disabilities (Francis, 927).

The key theoretical conclusions discussed in this article relate to the labeling conceptual framework. In explaining the two types of stigmatization discovered from interviews, courtesy stigmatization was cited as emerging from  close social proximity, which is a concept found applicable to the findings. Close social proximity is further linked to the relationship between parent and children. Society tends to associate parents with children’s dilemmas. From this perception the second one of blaming parents for their children’s social and medical conditions came into the forefront to the extent of labeling them ‘bad’ ( Francis, 927).

Researchers contend that the characteristics expressed and identified besides being closely associated with labeling theory emerging from close social proximity, the phenomenon is also a social construct being derived from an anxious, tense, parenting culture, which could have been inherited or patterned after a script established by society. More importantly,

problematisation and medicalisation during the childhood experience has been blamed for the  social construction arising from this labeling phenomenon. Consequently, negative labeling is often directed towards children and their parents. Many of these children carry invisible disabilities. Parents of younger children who may be classified untrained and out of control due to a hyperactive disposition are most likely to be named as ‘bad.’ Significantly, politics has a great influence on stigmatization of any type. Also, minorities are most likely to be stigmatized, especially, if they are poor or of a certain ethnicity (Francis, 927).

As such, my thoughts on this article pertain to whether this issue of stigmatization relates to people of a particular ethnicity or minority group. Secondly, is the stigmatization really associated  with medical/social dysfunctions or there are other underlying factors related to the phenomenon, which are not being mentioned. The social construction and labeling theoretical perspectives on the issue appeal to me because labeling is an aspect of structured inequality. Therefore, this is another explanation of marginalizing  among certain sections of the society. Structured inequality can use almost any societal feature to create inequality. In the same sense there is no reason to stigmatize parents and children if they seem medically or socially incapable. For me the article did not adequately reflect its theme ‘stigma in an era of medicalisation and anxious parenting: how proximity and culpability shape middle-class parents’ experiences of disgrace.’ Proximity and culpability did not shape middle-class experiences of disgrace. Rather, it is the society in which they live that shaped it.

Works cited

Francis, Ara. Stigma in an era of medicalisation and anxious parenting: how proximity and Culpability shape middle-class parents’ experiences of disgrace. Sociology of Health & Illness 34(6) 2012. pp. 927–942. Print.

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