The Self as Public Property

Made in Israel

Bibliographic Data

ID2049210
AuthorsAvi Shoshana (Bar-Ilan University, corresponding author)
Year2012
Volume35
Issue2
Pages185-201
Publication date2012-05-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSymbolic Interaction (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0195-6086 • E-ISSN: 1533-8665
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1002/symb.13
OpenAlexW1953622583
LanguageEN
Citations received6
References cited28

This article examines the connection between state order and self-understandings in everyday life through a case study of the 'Boarding School for Gifted Disadvantaged' in Israel. It includes content analysis of governmental protocols that documented the establishment of the boarding school (governmental constitution of a new self-concept) and interviews with sixty of its graduates (self-understandings in everyday life). The findings reveal how the new cultural order invented a new selfhood, 'gifted disadvantaged,' previously unknown in Israel. This category is based on structural distinctions between being 'naturally' gifted versus the governmental constitution of gifted status. Interviews with graduates indicate that they experience selfhood as a philanthropic gift bestowed on them by the state of Israel and voice their gratitude toward the state. The concluding discussion suggests that the graduates experience their selfhood as 'public property.' The self, perceived as having been constructed from outside, is in a continuous dialectic between the presence and the absence of certain personal qualities

Constitution · Dialectic · Disadvantaged · Epistemology · Everyday life · Gratitude · Political science · Self-Actualization · Sociology · Gender Roles and Identity Studies · Law · Philosophy · Psychology · Social and Cultural Dynamics · Social and Intergroup Psychology · Social Psychology

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