The social treatment of autism : a sociological study of medical diagnosis
type: Dataset
description: The notion of “social treatment” allows considering that autism presents a certain form of reality before being the object of different kinds of practices and knowledge. The notion of “social treatment” is preferred to that of “social construction” to avoid the idea that autism acquires a form of reality only through its social construction. The title's choice traduces a will to take distance from constructivism. All the categories have a social origin insofar as they are based on a socially produced frame, but categorizations are always put to the test of the world's materiality through our experiences. This thesis presupposes that autism's reality is the object of a continual and collective process of reassertion and revision. Why designating autism as a medical diagnosis? It is autism as the object of a human knowledge, which makes of it a socially produced reality, that becomes analyzable by the sociologist. To characterize autism as a medical diagnosis indicates that the purpose of this thesis is to grasp the continual and practical accomplishment of autism's categorization. This thesis relies methodologically on an ethnographical approach, and theoretically on the pragmatic sociology, to propose a sociological study of medical diagnosis from the case of autism. The first part deals with diagnosis as a category and aims at showing how this category is caught in different socio-political stakes. These socio-political stakes are highlighted through distinguishing four dimensions that shape the diagnosis of autism: its institution, its institutionalization, its politicization and its controversy. Theses dimensions permit to understand the stakes that shape diagnosis in the medical world and beyond. This part shows how diagnosis as a category is constructed at the crossroads of several logics that circulate in different worlds, through power relations between different kinds of actors, in a configuration that is likely to evolve over time. The second part deals wit…
identifier: NNT: 2013GRENH002
issued: 2026-05-05T21:04:35.964685
language: fr
modified: 2026-05-05T21:04:35.964689
contact point: Organization
  fn: CCSD
keyword: autism
keyword: autisme
keyword: care
keyword: disability
keyword: handicap
keyword: individu
keyword: individual
keyword: infoeu-reposemanticsdoctoralthesis
keyword: mental-health
keyword: psychiatrie
keyword: psychiatry
keyword: sante-mentale
keyword: shspsyhumanities-and-social-sciencespsychology
keyword: shssociohumanities-and-social-sciencessociology
keyword: theses
landing page: https://theses.hal.science/tel-00965350

The social treatment of autism : a sociological study of medical diagnosis
type: Distribution
format: HTML
issued: 2026-05-05T21:04:35.992985
modified: 2026-05-05T21:04:35.945351
access URL: https://theses.hal.science/tel-00965350

test_moissonnage_selune
type: Agent