Medical and Family Management of Autism Stigma in the Moroccan City of Kenitra: From Denial to Recognition

This paper, with reference to the social stigma model suggested by Erving Goffman, presents qualitative research exploring the experience of stigmatization in accounts from twenty families who participated in training workshops and awareness meetings organized by the Nasma Autism association. These workshops took place the city of Kenitra during the period June 2018 - April 2019 and centered on autistic children undergoing medical and psychological follow-ups by health professionals. If the reductive perspective of social stigma attributes the status of victims condemned to an eternal sense of guilt to stigmatized persons, the analysis of field data highlights that medical and associative structures give parents an opportunity to discover medical, psychological, and legal discourses. This allows them to publicly disclose the different identity of their children, and to rebuild autistic behaviours based on human neurological diversity. Thus, families pass through three stages in the context of their elaboration of strategies for managing social stigma: denial, resistance, and acknowledgement.

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This paper, with reference to the social stigma model suggested by Erving Goffman, presents qualitative research exploring the experience of stigmatization in accounts from twenty families who participated in training workshops and awareness meetings organized by the Nasma Autism association. These workshops took place the city of Kenitra during the period June 2018 - April 2019 and centered on autistic children undergoing medical and psychological follow-ups by health professionals. If the reductive perspective of social stigma attributes the status of victims condemned to an eternal sense of guilt to stigmatized persons, the analysis of field data highlights that medical and associative structures give parents an opportunity to discover medical, psychological, and legal discourses. This allows them to publicly disclose the different identity of their children, and to rebuild autistic behaviours based on human neurological diversity. Thus, families pass through three stages in the context of their elaboration of strategies for managing social stigma: denial, resistance, and acknowledgement.

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