You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
Drawing on a multidisciplinary group of experts from many countries, this Handbook is intended to be a reference work that provides students and scholars in policy-related disciplines a wide-ranging perspective on the diverse ways that family policies respond to modern issues and trends over the life course. The Handbook is divided into two main parts. The first part offers a panoramic introduction to the setting and issues which contemporary family policies have been designed to address. The second part and main body of the volume is organized around four benchmark periods that encompass the main stages of the family life cycle and social policies that are called into play during these stages.
These days, the concept of successful and active aging has become near ubiquitous, deployed by policy makers and marketing professionals alike. Beyond Successful and Active Ageing argues that while this approach to aging may seem benign, it actually exacerbates inequalities among older populations. Virpi Timonen puts forth a new theory designed to make sense of the popularity of these concepts and enable readers to view them through the prism of model aging, a theory that sheds light on the causes and consequences of attempts to depict aging as a stage of life that requires direction, reshaping, and control.
What is ageing? Why is ageing important and how can we understand it better? How does policy and practice in relation to ageing populations differ across the globe? This book aims to convince readers that ageing is not boring, threatening or depressing, but that it has enormous relevance for the young and the old alike. Virpi Timonen provides an engaging introduction to the central social, economic and political aspects and impacts of ageing and makes the case for the importance of analysing ageing from a number of different perspectives. Using comparative international data, the author provides a detailed description of the process of population ageing, including increasing longevity, chang...
Current understandings of ageing and diversity are impoverished in three main ways. Firstly, with regards to thinking about what inequalities operate in later life there has been an excessive preoccupation with economic resources. On the other hand, less attention has been paid to cultural norms and values, other resources, wider social processes, political participation and community engagement. Secondly, in terms of thinking about the ‘who’ of inequality, this has so far been limited to a very narrow range of minority populations. Finally, when considering the ‘how’ of inequality, social gerontology’s theoretical analyses remain under-developed. The overall effect of these issues...
Grandmothers are coming into their own. There have never been so many of them. As Naomi Stadlen explains, they have always mattered, especially in helping their families to survive. Drawing on grandmothers’ own words, Why Grandmothers Matter describes the experience of having grandchildren across many cultures, and discusses the sometimes delicate relationships between grandmother, parent-child and grandchild. This warm and thoughtful book has much to teach us about family dynamics and the role grandmothers play in wider society, and will be valuable for parents as well as grandmothers when they enter into a new phase of family life.
Grandparenting in the 21st century is at the heart of profound family and societal changes. It is of increasing social and economic significance yet many dimensions of grandparenting are still poorly understood. Contemporary Grandparenting is the first book to take a sociological approach to grandparenting across diverse country contexts and combines new theorising with up-to-date empirical findings to document the changing nature of grandparenting across global contexts. In this highly original book, leading contributors analyse how grandparenting differs according to the nature of the welfare state and the cultural context, how family breakdown influences grandparenting, and explore men's changing roles as grandfathers. Grandparents today face conflicting norms and expectations about their roles, but act with agency to forge new identities within the context of societal and cultural constraints. Contemporary Grandparenting illuminates key issues relevant to students and researchers from sociology and social policy, including in the fields of family, childhood, ageing and gender studies.
The book investigates digitalisation in care for older people by giving insight into service users’ and professionals’ opportunities to digital agency in the context of European welfare states. With a focus on service users and providers experiences of digital care, the contributions address the manifold and often contradictory consequences of active ageing policies and innovation programmes. To assess digital agency of older people, ageism and co-creation in the innovation processes as well the use of digital platforms are addressed, while care professionals’ digital agency is examined through empirical cases that focus on the interaction between human and non-human actors in long-ter...
This book demonstrates how the largely neglected and multifaceted concept of distance can be used as a primary lens to expand and enrich our understandings of what older people say about their lives, needs and wishes in diverse surroundings in the Northern periphery and beyond. It asks how physical, social and emotional distances shape older people’s everyday lives and practices. Contributions from leading experts provides interdisciplinary investigations into the experiences and stories of older people in the Northern periphery. These insights demonstrate the utility of the concept, distance, when reflecting on the central aspects of contemporary ageing societies. The book explores key th...
Later years are changing under the impact of demographic, social and cultural shifts. No longer confined to the sphere of social welfare, they are now studied within a wider cultural framework that encompasses new experiences and new modes of being. Drawing on influences from the arts and humanities, and deploying diverse methodologies – visual, literary, spatial – and theoretical perspectives Cultural Gerontology has brought new aspects of later life into view. This major new publication draws together these currents including: Theory and Methods; Embodiment; Identities and Social Relationships; Consumption and Leisure; and Time and Space. Based on specially commissioned chapters by leading international authors, the Routledge Handbook of Cultural Gerontology will provide concise authoritative reviews of the key debates and themes shaping this exciting new field.
There are not many books about how people get younger. It doesn’t happen very often. But Ageing with Smartphones in Ireland documents a radical change in the experience of ageing. Based on two ethnographies, one within Dublin and the other from the Dublin region, the book shows that people, rather than seeing themselves as old, focus on crafting a new life in retirement. Our research participants apply new ideals of sustainability both to themselves and to their environment. They go for long walks, play bridge, do yoga and keep as healthy as possible. As part of Ireland’s mainstream middle class, they may have more time than the young to embrace green ideals and more money to move to ene...