Identity, Semiotics, and Use of Symbols in Adult Day Services.

Purpose: This article explores experiences of older adults attending an Adult Day Service (ADS) center. We focus on semiotics, which is ADS clients' use of symbols to communicate with others and to assert their personal and social identities. We refer to the ADS as a semiosphere-a term that refers to the dense, symbolically mediated interactions among this community.

Aging, Spirituality, and Time: A Qualitative Study.

We examined the concepts of aging, time, spirituality, and future care needs in four randomly selected informants from a group of 54 never-married childless older women. Using data from the Generativity and Lifestyles of Older Women (GLOW) study, we questioned how women's perceptions of these concepts came together in current older age. We employed cultural theory, (our theoretical framework), ethnography, (our methodological framework), and phenomenology, (our philosophical foundation) to produce a portrait of each woman interviewed.

Three Generations, Three Wars: African American Veterans.

Purpose: This article emerged from pilot research exploring experiences of war and suffering among African American veterans who served in World War II, Korean War, and Vietnam War. Men's experiences as soldiers reflected both racism and the social change that occurred in the Unites States while they served.

Design And Methods: We used techniques of narrative elicitation, conducting qualitative, ethnographic interviews with each of five veterans in his home.

Chronic Illness and Generativity in Late Life: A Case Study.

Purpose Of The Study: This article presents a narrative-based case study about chronic illness and genetic uncertainty and their relationship to generativity throughout the life course. Our focus is a woman who experienced vision loss early in life and interpreted its impact on her generativity through present-day biographical rescripting.

Design And Methods: The case we present was chosen from the study "Generativity and Lifestyles of Older Women," which explored life history, social relations, and forms of generativity in an ethnographic interview format with 200 older women.

Generativity in Elderly Oblate Sisters of Providence.

Purpose Of The Study: We explored how generativity and well-being merged in a group of childless older women: African and Hispanic Roman Catholic Religious Sisters, linking two minority identity characteristics.

Design And Methods: We qualitatively interviewed 8 Oblate Sisters of Providence (OSP), by providing a framework for examining the range of the women's generativity-cultural spheres in which generativity is rooted and outlets for generativity.

Results: Early negative experiences, such as fleeing despotism in Haiti and Cuba and racism within the Catholic Church, occurred alongside positive experiences-families who stressed education, and Caucasian Religious who taught children of color.

A pragmatic belief system in family meaning-making after death.

The authors explored a sample of families' beliefs concerning creation of meaning in the recent death of the elderly husband and father and his existence in an afterlife. Data were collected through qualitative inquiry. Family members from 34 families were asked about their reaction to their loved one's death.

Managing threats against control in old age: a narrative inquiry.

Background: The desire to retain personal control over self and life circumstances continues into old age; it exists in tension with late-life vulnerabilities.

Objectives: This article investigates how older adults respond to threats against control in light of changes surrounding health and identity.

Methods: Community-dwelling African American (n = 10) and European-American older adults (n = 10), aged 70 years and older, with varied self-reported health statuses were qualitatively interviewed.

A death in the family: death as a Zen concept.

This study is based on original research that explored family reaction to the death of an elderly husband and father. We interviewed 34 families (a family included a widow and two adult biological children) approximately 6 to 10 months after the death. In one-on-one interviews, we discussed family members' initial reaction to the death, how the family is coping with the loss, and the changes that occurred in family relationships.

The salience of family worldview in mourning an elderly husband and father.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to qualitatively explore family reaction to the death of the elderly husband and father in the family.

Methods: We qualitatively interviewed 34 families (a family included a widow and 2 adult biological children) approximately 6-15 months after the death. In private, one-on-one in-depth interviews, we discussed how the death affected each family member as an individual and how each member perceived that the death altered the family as a unit.

Gender, religion, and the experience of suffering: a case study.

This article explores how gender and religious belief come together in an elderly woman's experience of suffering. It is based on qualitative research that explored experiences of suffering in a group of community-dwelling elders (80+) living in a North American city. We use the case study method to introduce themes that show suffering's uniqueness to the individual whose narrative we report, as well as similarity to themes that emerged in other participants' narratives.

Faith and end of life in nursing homes.

This paper explores the role of religious belief in the experiences of dying and death in a Catholic nursing home. The home appeals to residents and their families due to the active religious presence. Thus, religion is a salient element of the "local culture" which exists in this long-term care setting.

End of life: a family narrative.

This paper is based on ethnographic research that examines family reaction to an elderly husband and father's end of life. From a group of 30 families in our study (family defined as a widow aged 70 and over and two adult biological children between the ages of 40 and 60), we offer an extreme case example of family bereavement. We report our findings through the open-ended responses of a widow and two children who were interviewed ten months after the death of the husband and father.

The effect of suffering on generativity: accounts of elderly African American men.

Background: This article focuses on attitudes to and behaviors of generativity in 6 older African American (AA) men.

Methods: Data on generativity emerged from in-depth qualitative research that explored experiences of suffering in community-dwelling persons aged 80 years and over.

Results: For these AA men, experiences of racism were salient in stories of suffering, and suffering was intricately related to attitudes and behaviors of generativity.

The lived experience of depression in elderly African American women.

Objective: This article focuses on the lived experience of depression in 20 elderly African American women.

Methods: Data on depression emerged from research that qualitatively explored experiences of depression, sadness, and suffering in 120 community-dwelling persons aged 80 and older, stratified by gender, ethnicity, and self-reported health.

Result: We placed women's narratives under three general themes: Depression was (a) linked with diminishment of personal strength, (b) related to sadness and suffering, and (c) preventable or resolvable through personal responsibility.

Is pain suffering? A case study.

In this article, the case study of an elderly woman shows how bodily pain and suffering meld in her narrative, not as the subjective and objective sides of the same event, but as distinct experiences in which both constructs emerge separately or come together based on the meaning she imputes to the event. The case study shows the clear methodological fit of qualitative narrative research with the lived experiences of pain and suffering. The narrator recalled the "tremendous" pain she experienced almost 60 years previously as both suffering and not-suffering, depending on the outcome of the circumstances that surrounded her pain.

Moral imagination in long-term care workers.

Our study focused on the cultural construction of dying and death in long-term care facilities. This article centers on direct care workers' perspective of residents' deaths. The data on which this article is based were gathered in a multi-year, multi-site study through formal ethnographic interviews, informal conversations, and on-site observations of residents and staff members.

Direct care workers' response to dying and death in the nursing home: a case study.

Objectives: This paper is based on research that explored the cultural construction of dying and death in nursing homes and assisted living facilities in a large Northeastern city. It focuses on direct care workers' responses to elders' dying and death within the facility.

Methods: Data were gathered in a multiyear, multisite study through formal ethnographic interviews, informal conversations, and on-site observations of staff members.

Themes of suffering in later life.

Objectives: This qualitative research study explored the personal meaning of suffering to a group of 40 community-dwelling elders, stratified by gender and race.

Methods: We recruited 40 informants who were 70 years old or older from the Philadelphia, PA, area for extended qualitative interviews, which elicited their life story and experiences and philosophies about suffering. Cells contained 10 African American men and women and 10 European American men and women each (N = 40).

The metaphor of "family" in staff communication about dying and death.

Objectives: Caregiving staff need to have a way to make sense out of the death and dying of nursing home residents. A range of cultural and institutional factors (e.g.