“He Who Spareth the Rod Hateth His Son”: Perceptions Regarding Corporal Punishment Among Ultra-Orthodox Jewish Fathers in Israel

2020 ◽  
pp. 088626052090802 ◽  
Author(s):  
Netanel Gemara ◽  
Yochay Nadan

Based on the findings of substantial research, Western professionals today perceive corporal punishment as a threat to child well-being. They also view it as a violation of children’s rights. Nonetheless, many minority groups in Western societies still consider it to be a legitimate child-rearing practice. In response to this gap, this article presents qualitative findings from an exploratory context-informed study of Ultra-Orthodox Jewish fathers in Israel, regarding their perceptions and ascribed meanings of corporal punishment. Our exploration was guided by the following research question: What are the constructions, perceptions, beliefs, and meanings associated with corporal punishment among Ultra-Orthodox Litvak fathers in Israel? The thematic analysis of 15 in-depth semi-structured interviews yielded two central themes. The first is the view of corporal punishment as an educational tool with legitimacy based on religious sources and emotion-focused rationales. The second theme deals with different limitations on and guidelines regarding this legitimacy. Children were struck as a result of behavior that parents experienced as extreme, and striking the child in response to religious wrongdoing was viewed as problematic. The fathers interviewed stressed the need to suit the punishment to the child, in terms of the intensity of the blow, frequency, and the age of the child. The fathers also emphasized the importance of the child’s subjective experience being one of education as opposed to humiliation. Implications from these findings illustrate the gaps between the Ultra-Orthodox community and professionals who espouse the Western view that prohibits corporal punishment; at the same time, they portray the fathers as expressing an intricate approach toward corporal punishment, with conditions and limitations, as opposed to absolute approval. This article advocates a context-informed approach toward dealing with corporal punishment in minority groups that legitimize the practice. Adopting such an approach may contribute to better cooperation between professionals and their clients from minority groups, and advance child well-being.

2021 ◽  
pp. 088626052110219
Author(s):  
Aiala Szyfer Lipinsky ◽  
Limor Goldner

Studies dealing with the experiences of non-offending mothers from the general population and minority groups after their child’s disclosure of sexual abuse are scarce, and studies on mothers from the Jewish ultra-Orthodox community are non-existent. This study takes an initial step in filling this gap by exploring how the normalization of sexual abuse shapes these mothers’ experiences. A qualitative phenomenological study was conducted on a sample of 21 mothers from the ultra-Orthodox sector whose children had been sexually abused. It consisted of in-depth, semi-structured interviews of the mothers followed by a drawing task on their experience. The analysis of the interviews yielded four central themes: the role of social stigmatization and religion on the mother’s ability to share her child’s abuse; the effect of the disclosure on the mothers’ mental state and maternal competency; the mothers’ ongoing experience in the shadow of this unprocessed/unresolved trauma; and the mothers’ coping strategies, including acceptance, faith, and meaning making. The findings highlight the influence of the tension between the need to adhere to religious norms and preserve the social fabric and the need to enhance mothers’ and children’s well-being.


2021 ◽  
pp. 089202062110038
Author(s):  
Lucy Lindley

This study aimed to explore how educational leaders in England experience and promote their own well-being. To address this, five semi-structured interviews were carried out with educational leaders who expressed that they had personally experienced high levels of well-being. Using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), four themes were identified, which highlighted that well-being is a subjective experience (‘there’s no blueprint’); that high levels of well-being are commonly described as feeling balanced (‘maintain a balance’); that well-being is perceived as a personal responsibility (‘you’ve got to find ways to manage that’); and that participants were leading by example in relation to well-being (‘be a well-being supermodel’). Overall, this study emphasised that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to well-being, so educational leaders (and their colleagues) should be given space and personal autonomy to work out what works for them.


Author(s):  
Sean A R St. Jean ◽  
Brian Rasmussen ◽  
Judy Gillespie ◽  
Daniel Salhani

Abstract Child protection workers are routinely faced with emotionally intense work, both personally and vicariously through the traumatic narratives and experiences of parents and children. What remains largely unknown is how child protection workers’ own childhood memories might influence the manner in which they experience and are affected by those narratives. The aim of this explorative study was to use Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis as a research methodology to answer the research question, ‘In what ways do social workers experience, and make sense of, their own childhood memories in the context of their child protection practice?’ Semi-structured interviews were conducted with eight child protection workers, aiming to understand their personal and professional experiences with regard to this question. The study found a relationship between various forms of childhood adversity and the presence of negative present-day triggers when participants were faced with practice scenarios that bore similarity to those experiences. Implications with regard to child protection worker well-being, countertransference and risk decision-making are discussed.


Author(s):  
Rachele Antonini

Child language brokering (CLB) is a widespread practice of linguistic and cultural mediation or brokering that is generally performed by the children of immigrant and minority groups and that takes place in all those domains that pertain to these families’ social and daily life. It is a very young topic of interest; hence the body of research and literature available on CLB is still limited and highly fragmented and discipline-based, and attempts at bringing together researchers with different disciplinary and methodological perspectives are quite recent. Nonetheless, the increased interest in this topic of study has contributed to make it a fully fledged and freestanding area of study. Until the mid-1970s, the study of CLB was never the primary research question, and any observation on its existence was considered a byproduct of research focusing on other topics and issues. In the 1980s, articles and essays describing this practice started appearing in a variety of journals and volumes from a wide array of disciplinary perspectives. In the mid-1990s, research on CLB gained momentum and shifted to other aspects and issues of CLB, namely, the who, what, and where of CLB and its positive and negative effects on the language brokers’ education, identity construction, and psychological well-being. These include parentification and adultification issues that emerge when children assume the role of the decision-maker in the family and that may have a significant impact on family relationships, the children’s acculturation and learning process, and their attitudes toward their native and/or second language and culture. The study of CLB in Europe was introduced in the late 1990s and was initially almost exclusively UK-based. Since the end of the 1990s, it has developed in other European countries too, by focusing on the communities that represent the largest migrant groups present in each country, like for instance Moroccan communities in Spain, North African and Italian immigrants in Germany, and a variety of immigrant groups in Italy. CLB is now a topic of research in, inter alia, anthropology, bi- and multilingualism studies, educational studies, interpreting and translation studies, sociolinguistics, and psychology.


Author(s):  
Sus Corazon ◽  
Ulrik Sidenius ◽  
Katrine Vammen ◽  
Sabine Klinker ◽  
Ulrika Stigsdotter ◽  
...  

Binge eating disorder (BED), characterized by recurrent episodes of binge eating with a subjective experience of lack of control, is the world’s most common eating disorder. The aim of the present pilot study was to examine the feasibility of implementing nature-based therapy (NBT) in the treatment of BED. The NBT intervention was compared to Support Group Meetings (SGMs), which are the only publicly available form of support for people diagnosed with BED in Denmark. Twenty participants with a BED diagnosis were included in the study, which had a mixed-methods design including Eating Disorder Examination interviews, semi-structured interviews, and questionnaires measuring well-being (The Psychological General Well-Being Index) and self-esteem (Rosenberg’s Self-Esteem Scale). Both the NBT and the SGMs showed positive results on all outcome measures (decreases in binge eating episodes and increases in general psychological well-being and self-esteem). The interviews indicated that the NBT context made the psychotherapeutic content more accessible to the participants and further helped them transfer the therapeutic gains to daily life after completing treatment. However, these results should be interpreted with caution due to the small sample size—ideally, they would need to be tested on a larger, randomized sample.


Author(s):  
Olga Fleitlikh ◽  

The relevance of the study of personal self-determination is evident in a changing society, as societal crises determine personal crises. Scientific publications demonstrate a tendency to increasingly operate such a construct as ‘mindset’, the essence of which is reduced to a view of reality based on the subjective experience of the individual. Researchers describe a process of active transformation of this construct under the influence of ideas of self-awareness. In this sense, mindset becomes one of main determinants of personal identity. The research question that became the starting point of the study concerns the role of the subjectively perceived environment in the experience of human psychological well-being. Correlation, variance and multiple regression analyses as well as mathematical statistics methods were used to process the data. As a result of the study, the assumption that there are statistically significant links between the level of stigmatisation assigned and quality of life in the world-image structure of transgender people was confirmed. The sources and forms of social support that emerged as leading for the study sample determine high levels of self-stig matisation. The more deeply stigmatising attitudes permeate the personality structure and are appropriated by the individual, the lower the transgender person’s assessment of their psychological well-being. People with different levels of self-stigmatisation experience only two criteria for psychological well-being differently, rather than all of its components. Stigmatisation impairs a transgender person’s social adjustment and leads to a decreased quality of life, linked, in our view, to the basic assumptions regarding security upon which the individual relies to shape the world.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ko Wai Chan

The present qualitative study aimed to explore how the attitudes, experiences, and feelings of Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR) videos could be used to enhance psychosocial wellbeing similar to mindfulness-based treatment programs. ASMR is an atypical and multisensory phenomenon in which a tingling sensation is often elicited following specific audio-visual stimulations. Although ASMR experiences have been announced to enhance wellbeing and phenomenologically superimposed with mindfulness, there is a lack of research exploring how ASMR experiences relate to wellbeing. In this study, the theoretical underpinnings of the Differential Susceptibility to Media Effects Model (DSMM) by Patti M. Valkenburg and Jochen Peter (2013) are merged with Positive psychology's wellbeing theory (PERMA) by Seligman (2011) for the first time with the objective to explore and link the distinguishing characteristics of ASMR video with wellbeing outcomes.The study entailed two in-depth semi-structured interviews, which were conducted with three university students (one female and two males) in Finland. Interpretative phenomenological analysis with coding schemes was employed and guided by DSMM and Seligman's five domains of well-being. Three main themes and fourteen subthemes emerged from the analyses of the interview transcripts corresponding to the research question. The main themes include ASMR intentional use, ASMR media contents, and ASMR multisensory integration. The subthemes encompass prior ASMR-like experiences, social pressure from family members and curiosity, different types of sound, voices, and movement; nostalgic thoughts, pro-change bias, and positive responses. Exploration of interviewees' narratives further brought to light issues concerning ASMR's emotional effects on wellbeing. Analyses reveal different subthemes clustered into five main themes: Positive Emotion, Engagement, Relationships (Connectedness), Meaning and Making a Connection, and Accomplishment.The findings showed how ASMR videos enhance wellbeing through mindfulness-like experiences. These research findings are significant due to the ASMR videos' potential to increase wellbeing and happiness. Furthermore, their influence can extend to elevating the ability to concentrate on tasks at hand, improving the quality of sleep by stopping rumination, increasing self-confidence, and motivating altruistic behavior. The beneficial potential of ASMR videos to promote psychosocial wellbeing is remarkable


2018 ◽  
Vol 30 (9) ◽  
pp. 1403-1412 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tova Band-Winterstein

ABSTRACTBackground:In the last 30 years, elder abuse and neglect has been recognized as a social and health-related problem. The aim of this paper is to describe the phenomenon of elder abuse and neglect in a separatist faith-based society (ultra-Orthodox Jewish society—UOJS).Methods:A qualitative-phenomenological study with 28 social workers who underwent in-depth semi-structured interviews based on an interview guide consisting of the following items: visibility of the elder abuse and neglect phenomenon in the ultra-Orthodox society, and dilemmas and sensitive issues that arise when working with this population.Results:Three main themes emerged: (1) Between the commandment to honor one's parents and concealment patterns: Cultural barriers to exposing the abuse and neglect phenomenon; (2) “Life is demanding:” The unique expression of abusive and neglectful behavior in the UOJS; (3) Culturally related dilemmas when intervening with cases of elder abuse and neglect.Conclusions:Ultra-Orthodox Jewish cultural belief is a differentiating component in the context of elder abuse and neglect. Social workers need to develop a deep understanding of the unique characteristics of the phenomenon and cultural sensitivity to cope with it to address the well-being of older ultra-Orthodox Jews.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yngve Antonsen ◽  
Geir Bye

Abstract Background: A growing number of public healthcare organisations are now implementing the lean task board as a qualitative improvement tool to help solve problems and reduce wasteful work tasks. The task board itself helps line managers and employees to manage, collaborate and prioritize as it can present tasks that are upcoming, in progress or finished. With this focus, the presented paper’s research question is: How do managers’ and employees’ use of the lean task board promote learning for improvement in the municipal healthcare sector? Method: Qualitative case study data from a Norwegian municipality including 750 internal self-recorded logs from task board sessions from six different units and 25 semi-structured interviews of managers and employees. The data were organised based on content and recoded by comparing the codes and finding abstract theoretical patterns. Results: The task board works for line managers to make employees responsible for forwarding ideas, solutions and implementation of new actions. Line managers and employees used the task boards to systemise work through establishing new routines and focus on improving tidiness at work. The task boards were also used as a project management system to track progress in purchasing of diverse equipment and initiatives to improve the units’ facilities. Line managers and employees also set professionalism on the agenda, discussing and improving both daily attitude, work environment and user’s well-being. Senior management with a long-term strategy, support for line managers, and allocation of resources was essential to the implementation of the task boards. Conclusion: The implications from the study are that the lean task board is well suited to promote learning processes that tidy up chaos in local healthcare organisations. Drawing upon action learning theory, the study explains the learning challenges of using the lean task board in municipalities’ healthcare systems, as the method promotes finding experience-based solutions that do not involve critical reflection and use of theory. The task board has limitations as a method for improving services between healthcare units and for solving difficult problems. In light of the findings further investigation is still required to elicit how municipalities organize improvement through lean methods.


2012 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 137-145 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosanne M. Jocson ◽  
Liane Peña Alampay ◽  
Jennifer E. Lansford

The relations of education, authoritarian child-rearing attitudes, and endorsement of corporal punishment to Filipino parents’ reported use of corporal punishment were examined using two waves of data. Structured interviews using self-report questionnaires were conducted with 117 mothers and 98 fathers from 120 families when their children were 8 years old, and again a year later. Path analyses showed that, among mothers, higher education predicted lower authoritarian attitudes, which in turn predicted lower reports of corporal punishment use. Among fathers, higher education predicted lower endorsement of corporal punishment, which in turn predicted lower reports of its use. Results suggest that education has an indirect relation to use of corporal punishment through parenting cognitions, and highlight distinctions in Filipino mothers’ and fathers’ parenting roles.


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