Tova Gamliel

Intergenerational Educational Encounters: Part 1: A Model of Knowledge

This paper, the first in a 2-part series, proposes a Model-of-Knowledge for the social analysis of intergenerational encounters between older adults and children and discusses professional intervention. The model is based on the findings of a pilot counseling activity at a primary school in Israel. It sets forth 4 types of encounters between children and older adults. The encounters included an estimation of the relative advantage of knowledge on both sides, a mutual estimation of equal knowledge, and a mutual estimation of equal lack of knowledge. Beyond the presentation of each types content, the paper deals with this question: How does the proposed Model-of-Knowledge reflect the intergenerational gap between children and older adults and mediate between them? Gerontologists and educational professionals are invited to explore the psychosocial insights that the model brings to the fore.

Performed Weeping: Drama and Emotional Management in Women's Wailing

The Jewish-Yemenite wailing is a performed weeping controlled by the expert wailer who uses special strategies to manage the audiences emotions. Questions of emotional sincerity and self-authenticity, especially in the context of death events, render an explanation for the decline of wailing in recent years.

The Final Act: On the Limitations of the "Mask-of-Aging" Dramaturgical Metaphor in Representing the Performing Self

The purpose of this article is to challenge the congruity of dramaturgical metaphors, especially in the mask-of-aging thesis among older actors, and to explore what these metaphors represent for them late in their careers. The case study is a group of veteran actors in the Israeli theater who subscribe to the Method acting approach. In-depth interviews were conducted from 2007 to 2009 with 22 such actors, aged 62 to 95 years, on the topic of their acting profession. The data suggest that actors make no distinction between performative self and interior self in their attempts to define their selves. In contrast to theory, the actors’ work abets a reversed structure of the self in the acting arena. An actor or actress experiences a correspondence between the mask (“front stage”) and the way in which he or she talks to himself or herself (“back stage”). The author discusses the importance of the performing self for self-esteem under contemporaneous social circumstances.

Education in civic participation: Children, seniors and the challenges of an intergenerational information and communications technology program:

This article investigates an intergenerational information and communications technology (ICT) program that seeks expressly to enhance children’s civic participation by placing them in mutually educational encounters with seniors. Applying Devine’s model of the interrelationship among structure, power, and agency, it problematizes this goal by analyzing the dialectics of the power relations between seniors and children who maintain a technology-driven relationship. The data were gathered via qualitative participant-observation in two elementary schools. The results reveal clashing implications for children’s empowerment as computer “teachers” and their experiencing of agency. Implementation of Devine’s theoretical model sheds light on the meanings of the stereotyped terms “digital natives” and “digital immigrants,” as well as on the a-stereotyped senior’s identity as “digital consumers.” The conclusions suggest that the technological gap may not be definitive in confirming young people’s supremacy in the generational hierarchy, signaling the need for caution in handling this gap via civic empowerment in an educational setting.

Ghosts and habitus: The lasting hegemony in Israeli theatre

The article asks why the Israeli theatre’s ‘voicing hegemony’ practices endure despite a critical public debate that favors cultural pluralism. Ethnographies at two central repertory theatres elicit the meanings of the theatre’s ‘back-to-the past’ institutional habitus, as revealed in observations and in-depth interviews with actors, and disclose artistic dispositions that bolster veteran actors’ stature in the theatre and Israeli art generally. Analysis of the findings links professional capital with the twilight of an artist’s theatrical career. One conclusion connects the theatrical habitus with justification of Israel’s Zionist ideology. Theoretically, the article illuminates the historical component of the Bourdieuian concept of habitus. The duplication of this component in the back-to-the-past habitus inheres to mythification processes and makes the theatrical habitus relatively resilient to social changes.

DIGNITY TRANSITIONS: DEATH-RITUAL SYMBOLISM IN THE LIVES OF THE ELDERLY

This paper presents the experience of proximity to death in old age in light of ancient ritual practices. Characteristic mechanisms of coping with impending death among the elderly are discussed from the perspective of rites of passage. In accordance with Van Gennep’s model, this paper postulates that the subjects belong to a “death culture” characterized by patterns of “separation,” “transition” and “fusion.” A comparison of funeral and burial rites with daily practices of the elderly offers an interpretation deriving from the domain of ritual symbolism and provides an opportunity for a renewed examination of gerontological approaches and concepts. The discussion will focus on the term “dignity of the dead” which sheds light on patterns of separation from reality espoused by the subjects. The paper asserts that the ritual perspective offers an empathic framework for understanding the predicament of the elderly at the end of their life.