Sex after 60? You've got to be joking! Senior sexuality in comedy film
Publication date: January 2017 Source:Journal of Aging Studies, Volume 40 Author(s): Margaret Gatling, Jane Mills, David Lindsay Representations of the sexuality of older people have been largely absent in mainstream films until recent times. Cinema as an art form has historically denied or ignored the fact that humans are sexual beings their whole lives. In this paper critical discourse analysis is used to examine four comedy films released between 1993 and 2012 that tackle the subject of ‘senior sexuality’. All four films are explicit in representing older people as sexual beings but, unlike films about young pe...
Source: Journal of Aging Studies - December 30, 2016 Category: Geriatrics Source Type: research
Rewriting age to overcome misaligned age and gender norms in later life
Publication date: January 2017 Source:Journal of Aging Studies, Volume 40 Author(s): Jeremiah C. Morelock, Jeffrey E. Stokes, Sara M. Moorman In this paper we suggest that older adults undergo a misalignment between societal age norms and personal lived experience, and attempt reconciliation through discursive strategies: They rewrite how they frame chronological age as well as their subjective relations to it. Using a sample of 4041 midlife and older adults from the 2004–2006 wave of the National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States (MIDUS II), we explore associations of age and gender with subjective...
Source: Journal of Aging Studies - December 26, 2016 Category: Geriatrics Source Type: research
Living autobiographically: Concepts of aging and artistic expression in painting and modern dance
This article discusses the ways in which artists have incorporated or failed to incorporate the aging process of their bodies into their art. Using Russian ballet dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov and the French painter Claude Monet as cases in point, we explore situations in which physical changes brought about by aging compromises artists’ ability to engage with their artistic medium. Connecting Monet’s oeuvre and Baryshnikov’s dance performances to life writing accounts, we draw on John Paul Eakin’s concept of “living autobiographically”: In this vein, life writing research does not only have to take into account c...
Source: Journal of Aging Studies - December 22, 2016 Category: Geriatrics Source Type: research
Organizational capacities for ‘residential care homes for the elderly’ to provide culturally appropriate end-of-life care for Chinese elders and their families
This study therefore aims at building our best practice to enhance the capacity of residential care homes in providing culturally appropriate end-of-life care. We conducted two phases of research, a questionnaire survey and a qualitative study, which respectively aims at (1) understanding the EoL care service demand and provision in RCHEs, including death facts and perceived barriers and challenges in providing quality end-of-life care in care homes, and (2) identifying the necessary organizational capacities for the ‘relational personhood’ to be sustained in the process of ageing and dying in residential care homes. F...
Source: Journal of Aging Studies - December 18, 2016 Category: Geriatrics Source Type: research
Homelessness and aging: The contradictory ordering of ‘house’ and ‘home’
Publication date: December 2016 Source:Journal of Aging Studies, Volume 39 Author(s): Amanda Grenier, Rachel Barken, Colleen McGrath The concepts of ‘house’ and ‘home’ are compelling and contradictory. They are compelling because they elicit the desired sentiments of permanence, feeling ‘at home’, and maintaining continuity in one's life. At the same time, they can be experienced as contradictory where organizational practices and the socio-cultural imperatives of individual responsibility, cost containment, and rationed services are concerned. Where ‘house’ tends to evoke a sense of permanent stabilit...
Source: Journal of Aging Studies - November 13, 2016 Category: Geriatrics Source Type: research
Processes of developing ‘community livability’ in older age
Discussion Community livability is a process that varies considerably from the current conceptualizations. Understanding and expanding livability considerations will have positive implications for older adults' well-being while aging in community settings. (Source: Journal of Aging Studies)
Source: Journal of Aging Studies - November 11, 2016 Category: Geriatrics Source Type: research
Increasing pension age — Inevitable or unfeasible? Analysing the ideas underlying experts' arguments in the UK and Germany
Publication date: December 2016 Source:Journal of Aging Studies, Volume 39 Author(s): Steffen Hagemann, Simone Scherger Based on interviews with German and British experts from major political parties, government departments, employer confederations, trade unions and special interest organisations, we investigate the chains of arguments that these experts advance in favour of or against increases in state pension age. In this way, we add to the explanation why very similar reforms could be enforced in the very different pension systems of Germany and the UK. The chains of arguments deployed are surprisingly similar bet...
Source: Journal of Aging Studies - November 11, 2016 Category: Geriatrics Source Type: research
Immune to ageism? Men's perceptions of age-based discrimination in everyday contexts
Publication date: December 2016 Source:Journal of Aging Studies, Volume 39 Author(s): Hanna Ojala, Ilkka Pietilä, Pirjo Nikander Despite long-term, conceptually and theoretically refined discussions, the phenomenon of ageism still remains empirically under-developed. To better understand the diversity of ageism, its contextual variations and gender-specific dynamics in people’s daily lives, this study focuses on how different interactional contexts shape men’s perceptions of ageism. Using data from 67 thematic personal interviews with 23 middle and working class men aged 50-70, this study contributes to the sorel...
Source: Journal of Aging Studies - October 13, 2016 Category: Geriatrics Source Type: research
“And how old are you?”: Age reference as an interpretative device in radio counselling
Conclusion This study explicates in interactional detail the interpretative use of cultural common-sense knowledge about the life course in the context of the specific institutional tasks of radio counselling. (Source: Journal of Aging Studies)
Source: Journal of Aging Studies - October 3, 2016 Category: Geriatrics Source Type: research
Old age and vulnerability between first, second and third person perspectives. Ethnographic explorations of aging in contemporary Denmark
Publication date: December 2016 Source:Journal of Aging Studies, Volume 39 Author(s): Lone Grøn This paper is based on an ethnographic fieldwork aimed at exploring ethnographically how vulnerability in old age is perceived and experienced in contemporary Denmark. The fieldwork showed remarkable differences between two phases of the fieldwork: the first addressing vulnerability from the “outside” through group interviews with professionals, leaders and older people who were not (yet) vulnerable; and the second from the “inside” through more in depth fieldwork with older people who in diverse ways could be seen a...
Source: Journal of Aging Studies - September 28, 2016 Category: Geriatrics Source Type: research
Oscillating in and out of place: Experiences of older adults residing in homeless shelters in Montreal, Quebec
Publication date: December 2016 Source:Journal of Aging Studies, Volume 39 Author(s): Victoria F. Burns Aging in place is desirable from the perspective of older adults and policy makers alike. However, the meaning of ‘place’ for adults experiencing homelessness has been largely overlooked. Addressing this gap, this constructivist grounded theory study discusses the meaning of place for 15 older adults residing in emergency homeless shelters in Montreal, Quebec. Findings revealed that four interrelated dimensions of place—that is, control, comfort, privacy, and security were instrumental in supporting participants...
Source: Journal of Aging Studies - September 17, 2016 Category: Geriatrics Source Type: research
Negotiating ‘positive’ aging in the presence of age-related vision loss (ARVL): The shaping and perpetuation of disability
Conclusion The study findings have provided helpful insights into how the ideas and assumptions that operate in relation to disability and impairment in late life are re-produced among older adults with age-related vision loss and how older adults take on an identity that is consistent with socially embedded norms regarding what it means to ‘age well’. (Source: Journal of Aging Studies)
Source: Journal of Aging Studies - September 2, 2016 Category: Geriatrics Source Type: research
Dependence on place: A source of autonomy in later life for older M āori
This study examined the ways that place influences experiences of ageing for older Māori in New Zealand. Eight interviews with older Māori were analysed thematically alongside field notes from a research visit. Attachment to place provided the foundation for experiences of ageing for older Māori. Through their connection to place, the participants drew on a comforting and comfortable dependence on land and family to enable autonomy in later life. Rather than seeking to maintain independence in terms of avoiding reliance on others, older Māori conceptualised older age through autonomy and freedom to live in accordance w...
Source: Journal of Aging Studies - July 20, 2016 Category: Geriatrics Source Type: research
Perceived resident –facility fit and sense of control in assisted living
Publication date: August 2016 Source:Journal of Aging Studies, Volume 38 Author(s): Jari Pirhonen, Ilkka Pietilä The concept of resident–facility fit has largely been used to illustrate whether a residential care facility and a resident are together able to meet requirements set by only the hampering functional abilities of the latter. The purpose of this paper is to study how assisted living residents perceive resident–facility fit. The data were gathered ethnographically from both observations and resident interviews in a sheltered home in Finland during 2013–2014. Perceived resident–facility fit is base...
Source: Journal of Aging Studies - July 20, 2016 Category: Geriatrics Source Type: research
Baking together —the coordination of actions in activities involving people with dementia
This study explores interaction and collaboration between people with dementia and their spouses in relation to the performance of household chores with the focus on instruction as an interactional context to engage the person with dementia in collaboration to accomplish joint activities. Dementia is generally associated with pathological changes in people's cognitive functions such as diminishing memory functions, communicative abilities and also diminishing abilities to take initiative as well as to plan and execute tasks. Using video recordings of everyday naturally occurring activities, we analyze the sequential organi...
Source: Journal of Aging Studies - July 20, 2016 Category: Geriatrics Source Type: research
