Ageing in Society: An Introduction to Social Gerontology - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0803982836 ISBN 13: 9780803982833

Publisher: SAGE Publications, 1990

Synopsis

This comprehensive textbook introduces the reader to the main approaches to understanding ageing. The book is clearly written and well structured. Each chapter has been specially commissioned from a leading expert in the field.

Drawing on theoretical perspectives from sociology, psychology and biology, the authors show how each perspective focuses on different aspects of ageing, makes particular assumptions, uses concepts in distinct ways, poses specific questions and arrives at different explanations of the ageing process. These various approaches are shown to be complementary and contribute to our understanding of the ageing process in different ways.

This text will help students to develop a fuller understanding of the key features of ageing. The reader is encouraged to be critical of studies which view old age as a social problem and those which stress the negative quality of public attitudes to old age. By explaining issues of ageing within the perspective of the whole life span and taking a multidisciplinary perspective, the authors present a more positive view of human ageing.

Ageing in Society has been developed by the British Society of Gerontology to fill the need for an introductory text which draws together approaches from a range of disciplines and professions involved in the study of ageing. This essential text will be required reading for students and academics across the social sciences taking courses on ageing and the life course; and for those working in the health and caring professions, social work and psychiatiric medicine.

About this title

Review:

'Ageing in Society brings forth exciting new questions, fresh perspectives, and a necessary critical approach to key issues - this is indeed an authoritative introduction. The authors not only have made significant contributions to gerontology, but offer the reader considerations for what could be, not just what is, the design of old age in society. The book will inform students in ways that so many texts in the area, satisfied with comfortable bromides, do not' - Jaber Gubrium, Editor of Journal of Aging Studies, University of Missouri-Columbia 'This completely revised Third Edition of Ageing in Society presents one of the most comprehensive pictures of ageing today. Emphasising the dual processes of ageing societies and the experience of ageing, the book offers the reader - student or researcher alike - cogent discussions of the most up to date perspectives and evidence available. The contributors are all leading experts in their fields - comprising a range of important disciplines as they apply to ageing. Ageing in Society is a cutting edge text on one of the most important subjects facing the modern world - a must for all students of ageing' - Mike Bury, Emeritus Professor of Sociology, University of London 'The Third Edition of the comprehensive textbook Ageing in Society extends its scope to include continental Europe, allowing broader as well as deeper insights into recent trends in gerontology. Gerontologists and practitioners are urged not to stop reading before they have reached the insightful last chapter "Ageing into the future"!' - Professor Dorly Deeg, Editor-in-Chief European Journal of Ageing

About this edition

• Publisher: SAGE Publications
• Publication date: 1990
• ISBN 10: 0803982836
• ISBN 13: 9780803982833
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 352
• Editor: Bond Professor John, Coleman Professor Peter G