“I May Look 75, but I’m Really a Pioneer”: Concept of Self and Resilience Among Israeli Elder Adults Living in a War Zone

Julia Chaitin (), Rotem Sternberg, Hagar Arad, Lea Barzili, Nira Deray and Shlomit Shinhar

Journal of Happiness Studies, 2013, vol. 14, issue 5, 1619 pages

Abstract: This qualitative study explored concept of self and its connection to resilience among 35 elderly Israeli men and women, who live in a war zone along the border with Gaza. The participants were asked to tell their life stories and to answer questions that dealt with hardships they have faced, including the security threat that characterizes the area. Analyses of the interviews revealed 13 overall themes. The major theme discussed in this article centers on the interviewees’ self concept of being ideological pioneers, who have a strong belonging to the settlements they created in the desert. We conclude that this self-concept relates to resilience among this population, in spite of the hardships they have faced on the personal, familial, communal and social-political levels. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013

Keywords: Elder adults; Resilience; Self-concept; Biographical methodology; Israel; War (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10902-012-9398-3 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:jhappi:v:14:y:2013:i:5:p:1601-1619

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... fe/journal/10902/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s10902-012-9398-3

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Happiness Studies is currently edited by Antonella Delle Fave

More articles in Journal of Happiness Studies from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().