Melioristic Gerontology: Using Pragmatism to Reframe the Study of Aging.

IF 3.2 2区医学 Q1 GERONTOLOGY

Gerontologist Pub Date : 2025-09-10 DOI:10.1093/geront/gnaf187

Malcolm Cutchin, Graham D Rowles

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Aging populations in places around the globe face looming challenges from large-scale mega-trends. Gerontology needs to develop approaches for helping older people and their communities respond and share knowledge from those approaches. Based in the philosophy of pragmatism, we make a case for a 'melioristic gerontology' to focus gerontologists on those needs. After an introduction to pragmatism and its deep-rooted meliorism, we suggest several mega-trends-climate change, technological, and political economic-at the heart of our rationale for a melioristic gerontology. We then consider John Dewey's theory of social inquiry and Jane Addams' model of pragmatist praxis in communities. Both have inspired recent work to address community issues and citizens' engagement in those pragmatist-informed processes. We distill these contributions into essential traits of melioristic gerontology and identify key roles for melioristic gerontologists. Melioristic gerontology suggests how we can fulfill our responsibility for securing a better place in a world full of uncertainty by empowering older people and their communities to blunt the harmful effects of mega-trends now and in the future.

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老年学：用实用主义重新构建老龄化研究。

全球各地的老龄化人口面临着来自大规模大趋势的迫在眉睫的挑战。老年学需要制定方法，帮助老年人及其社区作出反应，并从这些方法中分享知识。基于实用主义哲学，我们提出了一个“老年学”的案例，让老年学家专注于这些需求。在介绍了实用主义及其根深蒂固的改良主义之后，我们提出了几个大趋势——气候变化、技术和政治经济——这是我们改良老年学理论基础的核心。然后我们考虑约翰·杜威的社会探究理论和简·亚当斯的社区实用主义实践模型。两者都启发了最近的工作，以解决社区问题和公民参与这些实用主义知情的过程。我们将这些贡献提炼成老年医学的基本特征，并确定老年医学学家的关键角色。老年学的改进建议我们如何通过赋予老年人和他们的社区权力来减弱现在和未来大趋势的有害影响，从而在一个充满不确定性的世界中履行我们的责任，确保一个更美好的地方。

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来源期刊

Gerontologist GERONTOLOGY-

CiteScore

11.00

自引率

8.80%

发文量

171

期刊介绍： The Gerontologist, published since 1961, is a bimonthly journal of The Gerontological Society of America that provides a multidisciplinary perspective on human aging by publishing research and analysis on applied social issues. It informs the broad community of disciplines and professions involved in understanding the aging process and providing care to older people. Articles should include a conceptual framework and testable hypotheses. Implications for policy or practice should be highlighted. The Gerontologist publishes quantitative and qualitative research and encourages manuscript submissions of various types including: research articles, intervention research, review articles, measurement articles, forums, and brief reports. Book and media reviews, International Spotlights, and award-winning lectures are commissioned by the editors.