Ageing without senescence: A critical absence in social gerontology?

This paper addresses the absence of the term 'senescence' in recent social science literature on ageing. The significance of this omission is considered in light of the emerging standpoint of gero-science, which argues that the central processes defining ageing are concerned with the rising probability of functional decline, development of degenerative disease and death. From this perspective, the separation of ageing and senescence sustains the myth that there exist forms of ageing that are exempt from senescence.

Is ageism an oppression?

The concept of ageism as oppression has become an important point of reference in contemporary gerontology. Apart from its giving substance to the negative experiences impacting on older people, the idea of ageism as oppression is used in many different contexts, with different meanings. In this paper we argue that the positioning of ageism as oppression, rather than constituting a deepening of gerontological focus, seems to serve as a way of connecting those using it with other social movements for whom oppression and its overcoming have been critical to their historical development.

Age, subjectivity and the concept of subjective age: A critique.

This paper presents a critique and proposes a reformulation of the concept of subjective age. It questions the nature of 'subjectivity' used in framing the concept and the consequent failure to distinguish between 'subjectivity' and 'self-identity'. I argue that age is not easily framed as a phenomenal (for-me) experience and that it is at least questionable whether aging or agedness possess what might be termed a 'first-person' subjectivity.

Values across Ages.

Ending Midlife Bias: New Values for Old Age, by Nancy Jecker, addresses what she sees as Western society's overvaluing of autonomy and undervaluing of dignity, a bias that she sees as particularly unsuited to old age. While she makes a strong case, two main problems challenge her approach. First, she characterizes later life by the diseases and disabilities associated with it, compressing its ever-expanding social space into a narrow location where need trumps desire, and comfort companionship.

Aging as Otherness: Revisiting Simone de Beauvoir's Old Age.

Aging has been given short shrift as a topic in philosophy. The aim of this article is to redress this neglect by revisiting some of the key philosophical issues in Simone de Beauvoir's book, Old Age. In her notion of old age's unrealizability, its impossibility of fully embodying a subject position, and the role played by the other in denying such subjectivity, she draws upon the work of both Heidegger and Sartre.

Bourdieu's forms of capital and the stratification of later life.

This paper outlines the case for applying Bourdieu's writing on 'forms of capital' to the explication of the social divisions of later life. Much of the writing about class in later life pivots on the distinction between working and non-working life. Broadening the focus towards a more Bourdieusian conceptualisation of forms of capital offers a greater potential to delineate and account for social stratification in later life than that accorded by either treating older retired people as a more or less homogenously marginal class or by applying class analyses to later life based on the relations of capital and labour.

Unacknowledged distinctions: Corporeality versus embodiment in later life.

The focus upon the body in the social sciences has had a growing influence in recent years on aging studies. Various terms have been used to explore the relationship between the body and society, of which 'corporeality' and 'embodiment' have taken pride of place. In this paper, we present the case for drawing a clear distinction between these two terms and the consequences that follow from it for the study of the body in social and cultural gerontology.

Suffering: The darker side of ageing.

Much of the literature on ageing is presaged upon a model of advocacy that seeks to combat what is seen as the negative stereotyping of old age and old people. One consequence is that ageing studies has difficulty in confronting the darker side of ageing except in so far as age associated disability and distress can be attributed to extrinsic disadvantage, such as low income, poor housing and inadequate services. The pain and suffering associated with age itself tend to be neglected as subject experiences.

Ageing, dementia and the social mind: past, present and future perspectives.

Accompanying the ageing of contemporary ageing societies is an increase in age associated morbidity, with dementia having an important impact. Mental frailty in later life is a source of fear for many and a major policy concern to all those concerned with health and welfare services. This introduction to the special issue on 'Ageing, dementia and the social mind' situates the selected papers within the context of debates about dementia and its social relations.

Connecting Life Span Development with the Sociology of the Life Course: A New Direction.

The life course has become a topic of growing interest within the social sciences. Attempts to link this sub-discipline with life span developmental psychology have been called for but with little sign of success. In this paper, we seek to address three interlinked issues concerning the potential for a more productive interchange between life course sociology and life span psychology.

Interrogating personhood and dementia.

Objectives: To interrogate the concept of personhood and its application to care practices for people with dementia.

Method: We outline the work of Tom Kitwood on personhood and relate this to conceptualisations of personhood in metaphysics and in moral philosophy.

Results: The philosophical concept of personhood has a long history.

Revisionist or simply wrong? A response to Armstrong's article on chronic illness.

This article is a response to David Armstrong's recent, revisionist account of the epidemiological transition which he claims replaced earlier discourses of ageing with new discourses of chronic disease. We argue (i) that he misrepresents a key element in Omran's account of the epidemiological transition, namely the decline in infant, child and maternal mortality; (ii) that he fails to acknowledge debates going back centuries in Western medicine over the distinctions between natural and accidental death and between endogenous and extrinsic causes of ageing and (iii) that he misrepresents the growth of medical interest in the everyday illnesses of old age over the course of the 20th century as a discourse of suppression rather than a process of inclusion. While we would acknowledge that the chronic illnesses of today are different from those of the past, this amounts to something more than the changing semantics of senility.

The fourth age and the concept of a 'social imaginary': A theoretical excursus.

This paper explores the idea of the 'fourth age' as a form of social imaginary. During the latter half of the twentieth century and beyond, the cultural framing of old age and its modern institutionalisation within society began to lose some of its former chronological coherence. The 'pre-modern' distinction made between the status of 'the elder' and the state of 'senility' has re-emerged in the 'late modern' distinction between the 'third' and the 'fourth' age.

Frailty, disability and old age: a re-appraisal.

Frailty has become a topic of increasing interest in health care. No longer treated as a catch-all term for agedness, decline and disablement it has acquired a more precise definition, applied to those individuals whose 'aged' state is seen to put them at risk of adverse outcomes. This transformation is we argue the outcome of a more general differentiation of terms that were previously used to categorize the weak and marginal within society.

Aging without agency: theorizing the fourth age.

This article looks at the "fourth age" as a manifestation of the fragmentation of "old age". We argue that the fourth age emerges from the institutionalization of the infirmities of old age set against the appearance of a third-age culture that negates past representations of old age. We outline the historical marginalization of old age from early modern society to the contemporary concentration of infirmity within long-term care which makes of old age an undesirable "social imaginary".

The power of silver: age and identity politics in the 21st century.

Pensioner political movements emerged in the interwar years in America and Europe. Documentary and empirical analyses confirm the influential role such movements played in helping shape the postwar social security systems of Western societies. Pensioner movements, qua pensioner movements, have failed to retain their influence, despite that "old age" and its demographic significance have become more salient.

Internet use and the digital divide in the English longitudinal study of ageing.

This paper examines the digital divide in Internet use in later life. We hypothesise that the differential diffusion of domestic information and communication technologies between pre- and post-Second World War cohorts is primarily responsible for this divide rather than either age-associated structural inequalities or age-related intrinsic features of mental and/or physical infirmity. Using data from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing we show that age/cohort differences in Internet use persist after income, education, employment and health status are controlled for.

A murderous ageism? Age, death and Dr. Shipman.

This paper examines the case of Dr. Harold Shipman, the English family doctor who is judged to have murdered over two hundred of his patients during his professional career. As nearly all of his victims were old age pensioners, his case has raised questions about the role of ageism in his committing these murders and/or in his getting away with them for so long.

Community and communication in the third age: the impact of internet and cell phone use on attachment to place in later life in England.

Objective: We investigated the following question: Would access to and use of domestic information and communication technology affect people's attachment to place in later life?

Methods: Drawing upon data on ownership of cell phones and use of Internet/e-mail from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing, we measured the association between access to such technology and self-rated attachment to one's neighborhood.

Result: There was a significant negative association between attachment to place and ownership and use of domestic information and communication technology, particularly the Internet. This association remained after taking account of age/cohort differences, as well as the influence of gender, disability, socioeconomic status of the neighborhood, differences in income and educational status, and length of residence in the area.

Class, cohort, and consumption: the British experience of the third age.

Objective: This study examines the relative effect of historical and social class location on engagement in consumerism within two different cohorts of retired people in the United Kingdom.

Methods: With use of self-reported data from the retired members of a nationally representative survey, an index of consumption was constructed. Its internal reliability was analysed and analyses of variance performed to examine the impact of class of origin, cohort, and class at exit on levels of self-reported "consumerism.

Abuse of carers by relatives with severe mental illness.

Background: Relatives often experience considerable problems looking after a family member with severe mental illness. The problems arising from verbal and physical abuse are not well researched or acknowledged.

Aims: To examine the frequency with which family carers experienced verbal and physical abuse from relatives who were being looked after by a community mental health service and to identify the correlates and consequences of that abuse.