Erving Goffman's Case Study

Erving Goffman is a well-known sociologist, who contribute to the development of today’s sociology. He has been considered to be very influential, due to his research on stigma and how it feels to be given stereotype when it doesn’t even apply to you. His findings are being used in today’s society. In Goffman’s research has a variety of strategies that incorporate individuals who are used to dealing with people who stigmatize them and their image of themselves. In this research Erving has three types of stigmas, which are physical stigma, stigma of group identity, and stigma of character traits. Physical stigma is define as deformities of the body, like birth marks, missing limbs, and other deformities that you are born with. The next type is stigma of group identity. Stigma of group identity refers to religion, particular race, nation, and other attributes like the one said. The last type of stigma is about the character traits. According to article by Ashley …show more content…
According Erving Grossman’s study this case follows under physical stigmas. The reason it falls under physical stigmas because the children some of the children were born with HIV and has no control over this situation. People in Brazil had a different outlook on these children due to them obtaining this disease. These children will have self-imaging problems because the surrounding society scrutinizing them. One of the children stated in the case study was diagnosed as the age of one and her family did not approved with her on having HIV. As she got older, she did not accept her identity and beginning to jeopardize her future by not taking the necessary steps to treating her HIV. This all resulted to the stigma that her society portrayed people with HIV (Cruz, Bastos, Darmont, Dickstein, & Monteiro,