The Sociology of Aging and the Aged

The Sociology of Aging and the AgedAuthor(s): Ethel ShanasSource: The Sociological Quarterly, Vol. 12, No. 2 (Spring, 1971), pp. 159-176Published by: Wiley on behalf of the Midwest Sociological SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4105709 .Accessed: 01/06/2013 04:48Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp .JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [e-mail]. .Wiley and Midwest Sociological Society are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend accessto The Sociological Quarterly.http://www.jstor.org
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The Sociological Quarterly 12 (Spring 1971):159-176 State of the Field Series* The Sociology of Aging and the Aged ETmEL SHANAS, University of Illinois at Chicago Circle OLD people are found in every society. Although sociological interest in the aged is relatively recent, the old as a significant part of society have been noted and described for centuries. The ancient Greeks, for example, recognized aging and the aged. The words of the aged Cephalus, quoted in Plato's The Republic (Jowett, 1937:593), have a modem sound about them: Men of my age flock together; we are birds of a feather, as the old proverb says; and at our meetings the tale of my acquaintance commonly is-I cannot eat, I cannot drink; the pleasures of youth and love are fled away: there was a good time once, but now that is gone, and life is no longer life. Some complain of the slights which are put upon them by relations, and they will tell you sadly of how many evils their old age is the cause. The description of the aged given by Cephalus is not unlike some contempor- ary accounts of this group. Current American sociological interest in the aged, however, can be traced directly to the efforts of Ernest W. Burgess as a member of the Committee on Social Adjustment of the Social Science Research Council. Professor Burgess encouraged persons to do research in this area-Otto Pollak, Ruth Shonle Cavan, Robert J. Havighurst, and Clark Tibbitts were among his earliest recruits and colleagues, Havighurst and Tibbitts as fellow members of a subcommittee on social adjustment in old age. Burgess also outlined important sociological topics which should be investigated. In a memorandum to the Social Science Research Council in 1940, he pointed out that while the propor- tion and number of old people in the population were steadily increasing, social scientists had given but little attention to the traits, behavior, and adjustment of the aged (Young, 1941). Professor Burgess saw the elderly as an emergent new problem group of society. Reviewing sociological interest, he listed seventeen possible topics for research on the aged. These topics still have contemporary relevance, and research is still under way on themes such as, "Seniority and its function in social control," and "Types of adjustment to retirement from business and other employment" (Young, 1941). Studies of the aged are now carried on both by social scientists and by many other persons in different disciplines; clinicians, biologists, and social welfare workers among others. There is considerable interdisciplinary work in the field. The range of topics covered is enormous, and a detailed classified bibliography of gerontology and geriatrics appears regularly in The Journal of Gerontology, the official publication of the American Gerontological Society. * This article was prepared with the assistance of State of the Field Editor, Irwin Rinder.
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160 THE SOCIOLOGICAL QUARTERLY In the present review paper I shall restrict my discussion to publications in the field which may be considered "sociological," defining these as works which deal with social structural constraints and persons in the middle and later years. Sociological studies of the aged focus in one of eight areas. These are (1) the family; (2) friends and neighbors; (3) housing; (4) work, retirement, and leisure; (5) economic constraints and welfare; (6) health; (7) social roles and life satisfaction; and (8) comparative studies. Obviously, the divisions between the classificatory areas are not clear-cut. While some works have a major emphasis in one area, they may also have minor emphases in others. In this review I shall first discuss briefly some significant landmark works on aged and the aging which appeared before 1965, and then summarize selected more recent publications in the field. Landmark Works In 1957 the Gerontological Society began a project to collect, organize, and publish existing scientific knowledge in the psychological and social aspects of aging for use by teachers in the field of aging. Dr. Wilma Donahue, a psycholo- gist at the University of Michigan, served as chairman of the organizing com- mittee for this mammoth work. The three volumes produced by this project, the Handbook of Aging and the Individual (Birren, 1959), the Handbook of Social Gerontology (Tibbitts, 1960), and Aging in Western Societies (Burgess, 1959), are landmarks in the field. The volume edited by Clark Tibbitts is particularly useful to sociologists containing as it does position papers in most of the sig- nificant areas mentioned earlier. Written more than ten years ago, many of these papers offer theoretical insights and predictions of things to come which are still extremely pertinent. As an example, Streib and Thompson (1960:447-488) in a thoughtful report on their research on the older person in the family point out that many of our ideas of the aged come from the popular press and represent atypical persons. Nowhere is this more true than in the area of family relation- ships. Streib and Thompson's research dealt with older people and their adult children. They stress that older people do not sit alone, neglected by their children. Instead, there appear to be many contacts between old people and their children, while at the same time older people and their children seek in- dependence each from the other. This theme has now become a familiar one in the empirical literature on the family. The three Handbook volumes are exhaustive compendia. A number of other more specific works in the sociology of the aging which have made major contri- butions to the field should also be mentioned here. While there appears to be no major pre-1965 sociological publications in either the housing or economics of the aged, or in comparative studies, there are valuable works dealing with the family, with friendship patterns, with work and retirement, with health, and with social roles. An interesting aspect of all these studies is the way in which the facts about the aged turn out to be completely different from many of the stereo- typical beliefs about them. This is true whether the investigator is reporting on family, friendships, work, health, or social roles. The most important book on the family in old age published before 1965 is undoubtedly Peter Townsend's The Family Life of Old People (1957). Professor
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Aging and the Aged 161 Townsend, then a member of the Institute of Community Studies, London, made an intensive study of old people living in Bethnal Green, a working-class area near central London. His findings, like those of Streib and Thompson, indicated that old people were not isolated from their families, and that in old age family life became not less important but more important. Further, he found that only a small minority of old people could be described as isolated, and in a brilliant analysis, he distinguished between isolation, or seclusion from others; desolation, or social loss; and loneliness, a subjective rather than an objective state of being. Written in a clear, concise, and vivid style, the Townsend book is an outstanding contribution to the sociology of aging. Even before Townsend's London survey, an American community survey of the aged had been completed in New York City (Kutner et al., 1956). This was the Kips Bay-Yorkville study, which originally sought to answer three questions: (1) what social and cultural factors facilitate adjustment to aging, (2) what kinds of people successfully adjust themselves to aging, and (3) what forms should be taken by programs designed to meet the needs of the aged. While the volume gives answers to all of these questions, the section of this research report which has had the greatest impact in the field deals with the relationships between the morale of the aged and their social contacts with family, friends, and neighbors. Kutner and his associates developed an index of morale in the aged. They found that among low status groups frequent visiting with family and friends had no relation to morale as they measured it; among high status groups low morale accompanied frequent visiting with children and relatives. This was not true of frequent contacts with friends. This unexpected finding was matched by another finding which violated "common sense think- ing." Like Townsend, Kutner found that there were some persons who did not respond adversely to social isolation (Kutner et al., 1956:118). It is worth noting that the authors of Five Hundred Over Sixty (Kutner et al., 1956), published almost a score of years ago, stress the need to relate social research to social action. This has been a common theme in the literature on the

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Sosiologi penuaan dan AgedAuthor(s): Ethel ShanasSource: The sosiologis Quarterly, Vol. 12, No. 2 (musim semi, 1971), pp. 159-176Published oleh: Wiley atas nama Midwest sosiologis SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4105709. Diakses: 01/06/2013 04:48Your penggunaan Arsip suku menunjukkan persetujuan Anda terhadap syarat & ketentuan penggunaan, tersedia di.http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. SUKU adalah layanan not-for-profit yang membantu para peneliti, peneliti, dan siswa menemukan, menggunakan dan membangun berbagai ofcontent dalam arsip digital yang terpercaya. Kami menggunakan teknologi informasi dan alat-alat untuk meningkatkan produktivitas dan memfasilitasi beasiswa formsof baru. Untuk informasi lebih lanjut tentang suku, silahkan hubungi [e-mail]. . Wiley dan Midwest sosiologi masyarakat berkolaborasi dengan suku untuk mendigitalkan, melestarikan serta memperluas accessto sosiologis Quarterly.http://www.jstor.org TheKonten ini di-download dari 140.159.34.46 pada Sabtu, 1 Juni 2013 04:48:29 AMSemua penggunaan sesuai suku syarat dan ketentuan12 kuartalan sosiologi (Spring 1971): 159-176 negara dari Lapangan seri * The sosiologi dari penuaan dan berusia ETmEL SHANAS, University of Illinois di Chicago tua lingkaran orang ditemukan dalam setiap masyarakat. Meskipun sosiologis ketertarikan orang tua relatif baru, tahun sebagai bagian penting dari masyarakat telah mencatat dan dijelaskan selama berabad-abad. Yunani kuno, misalnya, mengakui penuaan dan lanjut usia. Kata-kata anak umur, dikutip di Republik Plato (Jowett, 1937:593), memiliki suara modem tentang mereka: laki-laki usia saya berkumpul bersama; Kami adalah burung dari bulu, seperti kata pepatah lama; dan pada pertemuan kami kisah kenalan saya sering-aku tidak bisa makan, saya tidak dapat minum; kenikmatan pemuda dan cinta yang hilang lenyap: ada waktu yang baik sekali, tapi sekarang itu sudah berlalu, dan hidup ini tidak lagi hidup. Beberapa mengeluh sakit yang dibebankan kepada mereka oleh hubungan, dan mereka akan memberitahu Anda sedih dari kejahatan berapa usianya adalah penyebab. Deskripsi usia yang diberikan oleh anak ini tidak seperti beberapa contempor - ary rekening grup ini. Bunga sosiologis Amerika saat ini pada orang usia lanjut, namun, dapat ditelusuri langsung ke upaya Ernest W. Burgess sebagai anggota Komite sosial penyesuaian Dewan riset ilmu sosial. Profesor Burgess mendorong orang-orang melakukan penelitian ini daerah-Otto Pollak, Ruth Shonle Cavan, Robert J. Havighurst, dan Clark Tibbitts adalah di antara anggota nya awal dan rekan, Havighurst dan Tibbitts sebagai sesama anggota subkomite sosial penyesuaian di usia tua. Burgess juga diuraikan topik sosiologi penting yang harus diselidiki. Dalam nota untuk Dewan riset ilmu sosial pada tahun 1940, ia menunjukkan bahwa sementara propor-tion dan nomor tua orang di populasi yang terus meningkat, ilmuwan sosial telah memberikan tetapi sedikit perhatian pada sifat-sifat, perilaku, dan penyesuaian dari umur (muda, 1941). Profesor Burgess melihat orang tua sebagai kelompok masalah baru muncul masyarakat. Meninjau sosiologis bunga, dia terdaftar tujuh belas mungkin topik penelitian lanjut usia. Topik ini masih memiliki relevansi kontemporer, dan penelitian masih berlangsung pada tema-tema seperti, "Senioritas dan fungsinya dalam kontrol sosial," dan "Jenis penyesuaian untuk pensiun dari bisnis dan pekerjaan lain" (muda, 1941). Studi lanjut usia sekarang dilakukan pada kedua oleh ilmuwan sosial dan banyak orang lain di berbagai disiplin ilmu; dokter, ahli biologi, dan pekerja kesejahteraan sosial antara lain. Ada banyak interdisipliner pekerjaan di lapangan. Berbagai topik yang dibahas besar, dan sebuah bibliografi diklasifikasikan rinci geriatrics dan gerontology sering muncul di The Journal of Gerontology, publikasi resmi dari American Gerontological Society. * Artikel ini disiapkan dengan bantuan negara dari Editor Field, Irwin Rinder.Konten ini di-download dari 140.159.34.46 pada Sabtu, 1 Juni 2013 04:48:29 AMSemua penggunaan sesuai suku syarat dan ketentuan160 SOCIOLOGICAL KUARTALAN dalam tinjauan tulisan saya harus membatasi pembahasan saya untuk publikasi dalam bidang yang dapat dianggap "sosiologis," mendefinisikan ini sebagai karya-karya yang berhubungan dengan kendala struktur sosial dan orang tahun tengah dan kemudian. Studi sosiologis fokus umur di salah satu dari delapan bidang. Ini adalah (1) keluarga; (2) teman-teman dan tetangga; (3) perumahan; (4) bekerja, pensiun, dan kenyamanan; (5) ekonomi kendala dan kesejahteraan; (6) kesehatan; (7) peran sosial dan kepuasan hidup; dan (8) studi banding. Jelas, Divisi antara daerah klasifikasi tidak jelas. Sementara beberapa karya memiliki penekanan yang utama dalam satu area, mereka mungkin juga memiliki kecil penekanan pada orang lain. Dalam tinjauan ini aku akan pertama membahas secara singkat beberapa karya landmark signifikan pada usia dan penuaan yang muncul sebelum tahun 1965 dan kemudian merangkum dipilih publikasi terbaru di bidang. Landmark bekerja pada 1957 masyarakat Gerontological mulai sebuah proyek untuk mengumpulkan, mengatur, dan mempublikasikan pengetahuan ilmiah yang ada dalam aspek-aspek psikologis dan sosial penuaan untuk digunakan oleh guru-guru dalam bidang penuaan. Dr Wilma Donahue, psycholo-inti di University of Michigan, menjabat sebagai ketua penyelenggara sekolah untuk pekerjaan raksasa ini. Tiga volume diproduksi oleh proyek ini, buku pegangan penuaan dan individu (Birren, 1959), buku pegangan Gerontology sosial (Tibbitts, 1960), dan penuaan dalam masyarakat Barat (Burgess, 1959), Landmark di lapangan. Volume yang diedit oleh Clark Tibbitts sangat berguna untuk sosiolog yang mengandung seperti halnya kertas posisi di sebagian besar daerah sig-nificant disebutkan sebelumnya. Ditulis lebih dari sepuluh tahun yang lalu, banyak kertas ini menawarkan wawasan teoritik dan prediksi yang akan datang masih sangat relevan. Sebagai contoh, Streib dan Thompson (1960:447-488) dalam laporan bijaksana penelitian mereka pada orang tua dalam keluarga menunjukkan bahwa banyak dari ide-ide kita dari umur berasal dari pers populer dan mewakili orang atipikal. Nowhere ini lebih benar daripada di bidang hubungan keluarga-kapal. Streib dan Thompson penelitian berurusan dengan orang tua dan anak-anak dewasa mereka. Mereka menekankan bahwa orang tua tidak duduk sendirian, diabaikan oleh anak-anak mereka. Sebaliknya, tampaknya tidak akan banyak kontak antara orang tua dan anak-anak mereka, sementara pada saat yang sama orang tua dan anak-anak mereka mencari di-ketergantungan masing-masing dari yang lain. Tema ini kini telah menjadi akrab satu dalam literatur empiris pada keluarga. Tiga buku pegangan volume adalah lengkap compendia. Beberapa karya lain lebih spesifik sosiologi penuaan yang dibuat contri-butions utama di bidang juga harus disebutkan di sini. Meskipun tampaknya ada tidak ada pra-1965 sosiologis publikasi di perumahan atau ekonomi dari orang tua, atau dalam studi banding, ada karya-karya berharga berurusan dengan keluarga, dengan pola persahabatan, dengan kerja dan pensiun, dengan kesehatan dan peran sosial. Sebuah aspek yang menarik dari studi ini adalah cara di mana fakta tentang orang tua berubah menjadi benar-benar berbeda dari banyak stereo - khas keyakinan tentang mereka. Hal ini berlaku apakah penyidik adalah pelaporan pada keluarga, persahabatan, pekerjaan, Kesehatan, atau peran sosial. Buku paling penting pada keluarga di usia tua yang diterbitkan sebelum 1965 tidak diragukan lagi Peter Townsend The keluarga hidup dari orang tua (1957). ProfesorKonten ini di-download dari 140.159.34.46 pada Sabtu, 1 Juni 2013 04:48:29 AMSemua penggunaan sesuai suku syarat dan ketentuanAging and the Aged 161 Townsend, then a member of the Institute of Community Studies, London, made an intensive study of old people living in Bethnal Green, a working-class area near central London. His findings, like those of Streib and Thompson, indicated that old people were not isolated from their families, and that in old age family life became not less important but more important. Further, he found that only a small minority of old people could be described as isolated, and in a brilliant analysis, he distinguished between isolation, or seclusion from others; desolation, or social loss; and loneliness, a subjective rather than an objective state of being. Written in a clear, concise, and vivid style, the Townsend book is an outstanding contribution to the sociology of aging. Even before Townsend's London survey, an American community survey of the aged had been completed in New York City (Kutner et al., 1956). This was the Kips Bay-Yorkville study, which originally sought to answer three questions: (1) what social and cultural factors facilitate adjustment to aging, (2) what kinds of people successfully adjust themselves to aging, and (3) what forms should be taken by programs designed to meet the needs of the aged. While the volume gives answers to all of these questions, the section of this research report which has had the greatest impact in the field deals with the relationships between the morale of the aged and their social contacts with family, friends, and neighbors. Kutner and his associates developed an index of morale in the aged. They found that among low status groups frequent visiting with family and friends had no relation to morale as they measured it; among high status groups low morale accompanied frequent visiting with children and relatives. This was not true of frequent contacts with friends. This unexpected finding was matched by another finding which violated "common sense think- ing." Like Townsend, Kutner found that there were some persons who did not respond adversely to social isolation (Kutner et al., 1956:118). It is worth noting that the authors of Five Hundred Over Sixty (Kutner et al., 1956), published almost a score of years ago, stress the need to relate social research to social action. This has been a common theme in the literature on the