Test 1

Why wouldn’t you use the term “the elderly”

• homogenous group, which is far from the truth

• could use “older adult” “younger adult” instead

what does our society value

• wealth, health, physical beauty, youth, competence, independent, intelligence, productivity, and economic success and achievement

Attitudes toward older adults

• society tends to devalue people who embody opposite of what is positively valued

• disabled people, older people, people living in poverty, people who are deemed to be dependent, incompetent and less productive are socially devalued

Rowe and Kahn’s successful aging

Factors predicting “successful aging”

• avoidance of disease and disability

• maintenance of high physical and cognitive function

• sustained engagement in social and productive activities

Gerontology

broad study of aging process through maturity through old age

Geriatrics

Clinical medical specialty dedicated to older adult healthcare

WHO definition of “healthy aging”

• creating the environments and opportunities that enable peoplr to be and do what they value throughout their lives

• being free of chronic illness or impairments is not a requirement for healthy aging

• focus is on enabling opportunities and removing barriers

How do aging and disability intersect across the life course

• people age with disability or acquire it later

• social conditions shape both experiences

how are aging and disability often separated

• studied in different fields

• governed through different services and identities

“Standardized” life course or institutionalized life course

education → employment and family roles → retirement and later life

what does chronological age help determine

• which transitions are considered “on time”

• access to income, pensions and services

• expectations of independence and productivity

earlier life

• disability is separated from the “normal” life course

• treated as an exception

• addressed through specialized systems

later life

• aging and impairment are often conflated

• decline is treated as expected

• barriers are reframed as consequences of age

impairment

• a bodily, sensory, cognitive or psychological difference or limitation

Disability

restricted participation produces through interaction with social, environmental and attitudinal barriers

disablement

how environments and institutions turn difference into exclusion

aging with a disability

• disability precedes later life

• entering older-adult systems may disrupt supports and identities

aging into disability

• disability is acquired or recognized later

• needs may be interpreted only through aging or frailty

how do institutions help produce dependency

• labour-market exclusion and unequal earnings

• rigid age and diagnosis based eligibility rules

• assessments that require proof of incapacity

• fragmented programs and age thresholds

how do life-course conditions shape impairment and access to support

• poverty and insecure housing

• dangerous work and inadequate health care

• racism and colonial violence

• unpaid care and labour market exclusion

life-course and disability-justice approach

• what does the person value

• which barriers restrict participation

• using a life course lens, how have inequalities shaped present needs

• do age thresholds disrupt supports

• how can care preserve autonomy and choice

Katz and Calasanti critique 1 of Rowe and Kahn

Measurement and the meaning of success

• studies use inconsistent definitions and measures

• external criteria can differ from peoples own assessements

• a single outcome label can flatten diverse experiences

• changing the criteria may preserve the same ranking logic

Katz and Calasanti critique 2 of Rowe and Kahn

Choice within unequal circumstances

• health behaviours occurs within material conditions

• support and accessible environments affect participation

• individual responsibility can obscure collective obligations and theories are incomplete unless they consider both

Life course approach

advantages and disadvantages can accumulate; work and caregiving histories shape later resources

intersectionality

gender, racialization, class and age relations intersect

Adaptation and alternative approaches

• selection: choosing personally meaningful goals

• optimization: developing resources for those goals

• compensation: using support or alternative methods

Chronological age

records time lived

disability

concerns impairment in relation to participation and barriers

chronic illness

concerns an ongoing health condition

frailty

concerns vulnerability and has contested clinical and social meanings

third age

period of later life associated with opportunities for autonomy, personal fulfillment, and social participation, often following retirement

fourth age

a social and cultural imaginary of later life associated with frailty, dependency and loss of autonomy. it represents a feared old age, in which others may view a personal primarily through their care needs rather than identity and agency

social perspective

• broad way of understanding society

• tells us what to look at

Theory

• more specific explanation of how or why a social phenomenon occurs

• helps us explain what we see

Examples of social perspectives

• structural functionalism

• conflict perspective

• symbollic interactionism

• feminist perspectives

Theoretical approaches of structural functionalism

• disengagement theory

• activity theory

• early life course theory

• continuity theory

Structural Functionalism

Broad sociological perspective

• social stability is the focus, not social change

• society as a human body

• organs perform specialized functions → social institutions perform specialized functions

• organs depend on each other → institutions and social groups are interdependent

• body requires coordination to survive → society requires cooperation and social integration to maintain stability

• dysfunction in one organ can affect the entire body → disruptions in one institution can affect other parts of society

Continuity Theory

• Structural functionalism

• micro level, attention to social relationships and environments

• older adults desire to maintain consistency to maintain “social equilibirum and stability”

Life Course Perspective

• structural functionalism

• multi level

• all individuals go through expected stages in a linear pattern, with life events happening at set periods of time, from being a child to adult to elderly

Continuity theory critique

emphasizes “stability” underestimating change, growth and transformation

life course perspective critique

• universal theory that emphasizes predictability and glosses over the complexity of people’s lives and identities

• methodologically demanding in research

Disengagement theory

• structural functionalism

• macro level, address individual psychological and social processes

• earliest gerontological theory

Disengagement theory critique

• argues that withdrawing from society in natural part of aging

• does not allow for wide variation in way people experience aging, riskes overlooking age discrimination and desire to stay engaged

Activity theory

• structural functionalism

• micro level, attention to social roles and participation

• gerontological theory that posits that activity levels and social involvement

activity theory critique

• not all older adults have equal opportunities and activities

• not all older adults find fulfillment in these things

Conflict perspective theories

• cumulative advantage/disadvantage theory, political economy of aging

conflict perspective

• associated with karl marx and freidrich engels

• macro level broad social theory

• society as a “battle ground”

• class divisions are main source of conflict in all large societies, motivating factor for major socio-historical change

• helps us understand how older adults experiences are shaped by unequal distributions of resources and power

Critiques of Conflict perspective

• can place emphasis on inequalities and give less attention to individual agency

• emphasizes competing interests rather than cooperation

• does not explain diversity fully or individual interpreations of aging

Theories under conflict perspective

• cumulative advantage/disadvantage theory

• political economy of aging

Political economy of aging

• conflict perspective

• macro level

• how political decisions, economic systems and institutional arrangements shape inequalties in later life

• how inequitable conditions are produces through social structures

Critique of political economy of aging

overemphasize economic and political structures

Cumulative advantage/disadvantage theory

• conflict perspective

• multi level

• how social and economic advantages and disadvantages accumulate and interact across the life course, contributing to inequalities in later life

critique of Cumulative advantage/disadvantage theory

• overemphasize the accumulation of inequality

• can suggest overly predictable life trajectories

• can underemphasize individual agency and resilience

Symbolic interactionism

• social perspective

• micro level

• examines how people construct, interpret and negotiate meaning through everyday social interactions

• society as a stage

theories under social interactionism

labelling theory

critique of symbolic interactionism

• underemphasizes structural inequalties and power

• over emphasize individual agency

Labelling theory

• symbolic interactionism

• micro level

• stigma theory

• aging as a socially constructed identity

• helps us understand how categorizing indiivudlas can infulence how they are percieved, treated and potentially how they understand themselves

critique of labelling theory

• can overemphasize the power of labels

Feminist Perspective

• micro, meso and macro

• examines how gendered power relations, social institutions and intersecting inequalities shape people’s opportunities, identities and lived experiences

• focuses on discrimination of women

• older adulthood cannot be understood independently of gendered experiences

theories under feminist perspectives

feminist standpoint theory

critiques of feminist perspectives

• historically centered white, middle class women

• can overemphasize gender as explanation for inequality

sibling dynamics and caregiving

• local sibling often worn out

• distant one may feel guilty

• frame it as “more brains at the table”