Journal of Aging Studies最新文献

{"title":"At Your Age?! and AgeACTED: a theoretical exploration of an ethnodrama on ageism","authors":"Elaine Desmond,&nbsp;Eleanor Bantry White","doi":"10.1016/j.jaging.2025.101349","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jaging.2025.101349","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This article provides a theoretical exploration of an ethnodrama project on ageism entitled AgeACTED (Ageism Challenged Through Ethnodrama). The theatre script, <em>At Your Age?!</em>, which was the output of AgeACTED uses the verbatim words of six ‘third age’ women aged between 64 and 75. This article explores the script and discussions that informed it using the Terror Management Theory of ageism and the threat of death, animality, and insignificance, which it describes. The difficult discussions around the representation of death and the fourth age indicated that, for the women in AgeACTED, fear of the fourth age was more significant than fear of death. The article explores how the women framed their successful ageing in the third age and contrasted this with a stereotyped and feared fourth age imaginary. This future imaginary served as both a source of fear and as the motivation to avoid it by prolonging the third age. Thus, while AgeACTED set out to explore how the women were subjected <em>to</em> ageism, it found that ageist stereotypes were also internalised <em>within</em> their ageing process, particularly in relation to the fourth age. This article highlights the urgent need for a re-evaluation of fourth age institutionalised care. It also argues, however, for the promotion of more diversified, less distressing imaginaries of the fourth age, and alternative sources of self-esteem and resilience for those in the third age, which are not reliant upon the avoidance of, and comparison with, a stereotyped and detrimental imaginary.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47935,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Aging Studies","volume":"75 ","pages":"Article 101349"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2025-07-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144703668","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Tasteful old age: A qualitative study on nursing home marketing and class identity among middle-class older adults in urban China","authors":"Yeori Park","doi":"10.1016/j.jaging.2025.101348","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jaging.2025.101348","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This ethnographic study investigates how middle-class identity among older adults in China, influenced by the marketing strategies of private nursing homes, is constructed through their imagination of a tasteful old age. This research uses participant observation and in-depth interviews to analyze the role of class and social and cultural capital in shaping residents' choices about late-life care. A total of 44 individuals participated in this study. In China, private nursing homes target middle-class older adults by utilizing media and tour programs to advertise a new concept of aging and craft a specific image of being middle-class. Thus, older adults who encounter these advertisements might discover new possibilities of a non-traditional, modern kind of old age in China and begin to aspire to embody that idea. These older adults enjoy a private yet socially engaging environment in upscale retirement homes, which they imagine as a gated community (and, in fact, are gated) with hierarchical spaces. During data collection, this demographic emphasized that they had persuaded their children, who opposed sending their parents to a nursing home due to traditional filial piety values, to allow them to move into Xingfu Retirement Home, an aspirational middle-class living space for China's aging population. Their narratives illustrate that they perceive themselves as possessing a more enlightened mindset than their children (because they embrace a new form of senior care) and that they embody a middle-class identity replete with social, economic, and cultural capital. This self-concept reinforces a hierarchical view of old age, where one's ability to choose and afford a certain type of care becomes a marker of class distinction.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47935,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Aging Studies","volume":"75 ","pages":"Article 101348"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2025-07-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144579855","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"“In the driver's seat”: Navigating vulnerability and autonomy in digital storytelling with older adults","authors":"Emily Graff ,&nbsp;Audrey Tung ,&nbsp;Sarah Wagner","doi":"10.1016/j.jaging.2025.101346","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jaging.2025.101346","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Digital Storytelling has emerged as a powerful tool for social change, providing a platform for uncovering and amplifying marginalized voices. While its application in gerontology has grown, previous workshops often exclude individuals in long-term care settings. This paper shifts the focus to care home residents, exploring how Digital Storytelling can facilitate participant agency in the face of their perceived vulnerabilities.</div><div>Drawing on 11 virtual Digital Storytelling workshops in care homes on Vancouver Island, B.C., Canada, this study uncovers the nuanced relationship between vulnerability and autonomy in storytelling. It challenges the notion of autonomy as strictly individualistic, showcasing vulnerability as a pathway to agency within caring relationships. The analysis contributes new understanding to an Ethics of Care framework, demonstrating the enabling role of vulnerability in terms of promoting relational autonomy. The paper calls for a caregiving approach in research practices to support the inclusion of underrepresented individuals and contributes a specific angle to Digital Storytelling research by providing in-depth insight into the interrelations of vulnerability and autonomy within facilitator-participant relationships.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47935,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Aging Studies","volume":"75 ","pages":"Article 101346"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2025-07-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144571028","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Taking upon ourselves the entirety of our human state: young writers imagining what it is to be old","authors":"Susan Pickard","doi":"10.1016/j.jaging.2025.101345","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jaging.2025.101345","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper focuses on Othering as a cultural form of ageism, discussed in some detail by Simone de Beauvoir in The Coming of Age. Through Othering, older people are treated as fundamentally different to the rest of (younger) society with consequences including social alienation, oppression and economic inequality. However, whilst clearly detrimental to older people themselves, this distancing is also malignant for the rest of society in diminishing the value of a good portion of the life course. The paper argues that this process of setting apart can be reduced by imaginative and creative depictions of old age, working through plots that depict older age as both unique yet continuous with earlier life stages, and equally capable of holding meaning, value and authenticity. Narrative gerontology, for instance, argues that even in conditions of constraint, choices can be made over plots, in particular whether the plot of late life and old age is viewed as one of ‘tragedy’ or ‘adventure’. After setting out this theoretical framework, the paper explores four novels, written by younger people, which are exemplary in their capacity for imaginative empathy. Succeeding in bridging the gap between generational space and time, in some cases and especially for older women, they demonstrate how old age can in fact provide the first opportunity for choice, selfdetermination and agency as well as for fulfilling authentic goals that were incompatible with those chosen at earlier points in the life course. Since a key mechanism of ageism is failure of the imagination, the paper recommends that listening to and composing stories of old age should be a part of the educational curriculum everywhere.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47935,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Aging Studies","volume":"75 ","pages":"Article 101345"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2025-07-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144523698","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"When technology non-use troubles good ageing","authors":"Carla Greubel ,&nbsp;Daniel López Gómez ,&nbsp;Susan van Hees ,&nbsp;Ellen H.M. Moors ,&nbsp;Alexander Peine","doi":"10.1016/j.jaging.2025.101324","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jaging.2025.101324","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In ageing research, policy, and practice, older adults' non-use of digital technologies is often discussed as an involuntary state that risks marginalising older adults. In recent years, critical appraisals of technology non-use in gerontological literature have opened up dominant definitions of non-use as a problem, re-constructing older adults' engagement with technology as diverse and deliberate practices. To understand the multifaceted nature of what is considered non-use, however, these studies have often focused on older adults who self-identify as non-users, or on criteria of non-use that these researchers themselves established.</div><div>In this paper, we suggest a more processual and dialogical approach. Drawing on in-depth qualitative interviews and participant observation with providers and participants of a digital social care service for the prevention of social isolation and loneliness in old age, we show that ascriptions of ‘non-users’ to older adults may come from different actors, and that they may be in conflict with how the older adults define their engagement with technologies. Taking those <em>frictions</em> between different ascriptions of use and non-use into consideration, as well as the <em>socio-material negotiations</em> through which such frictions are responded to, our analysis reveals how non-use is intertwined with notions of ‘good ageing’. In the context of digital health and social care services for older people, whose mission is to facilitate ‘good ageing’, negotiations about use and non-use are in fact negotiations about different ways of understanding and enacting good ageing in practice.</div><div>Reflecting on insights from our study, we propose ways to improve the ability of human and non-human actors to respond to each other's diverse forms of understanding and enacting good ageing. Cultivating such ‘response-ability’ may open alternatives to a gradual disengagement for older persons participating in digital health and social care services by allowing more diverse forms of good ageing to co-exist. As a result, non-use can shift from being a problem or concern to being an indication of ways of improving ‘good ageing’ together.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47935,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Aging Studies","volume":"75 ","pages":"Article 101324"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2025-06-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144261522","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Resistant, adaptive, and supported agency – Examining narratives of Finnish older home care clients","authors":"Marjo Ring ,&nbsp;Feliciano Villar ,&nbsp;Hanna Ristolainen ,&nbsp;Elisa Tiilikainen","doi":"10.1016/j.jaging.2025.101342","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jaging.2025.101342","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The purpose of this article is to increase our understanding of agency in older home care clients living in Finland. Twenty older home care clients (12 women, eight men) aged 73 and over were interviewed using a thematic interview. The stories narrated in the interview data were analyzed using thematic analysis, resulting in three forms of agency: resistant, adaptive, and supported. The findings show that older adults see themselves – despite their need for help and support – as capable individuals who challenge perceptions of being just objects of care. The stories of the older home care clients made visible how older adults with care needs maintain an experience of continuity of selfhood through agency. Home care workers play an important role in recognizing older home care clients' agency and in supporting their personhood and subjectivity.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47935,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Aging Studies","volume":"75 ","pages":"Article 101342"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2025-05-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144167079","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Discrimination and loneliness among transgender older adults","authors":"Sacramento Pinazo-Hernandis,&nbsp;Celia Carrascosa","doi":"10.1016/j.jaging.2025.101334","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jaging.2025.101334","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Many members of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) population have experienced marginalisation throughout their lives. Most related research has focused on the LGBT population in general; however, it is necessary to focus on transgender people because they are particularly socially marginalised and are at greater risk of stigmatisation and discrimination in various aspects across their lifespan and during old age. The aim of this research is to study the experiences of discrimination, the associated feelings of loneliness, and the social support of transgender people over the age of 45. A mixed methodology and a cross-sectional design were used. Twenty-seven transgender people aged 45–77 years answered an online questionnaire that combined open-ended and closed-ended questions. The results of this study revealed different situations of discrimination experienced by older transgender people (62.9 % said they had been discriminated against), low levels of social support (48.1 %) and high scores in loneliness (with 74.1 % of participants scoring high levels of loneliness). If high levels of loneliness and discrimination are related to various health problems, transgender people could find diverse difficulties during their ageing in addition to those of normal biological ageing. Knowing which situations of discrimination affect transgender older people and their relationship with psychological well-being will help to promote better ageing and assist in identifying the most appropriate targets for community-based psychosocial interventions.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47935,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Aging Studies","volume":"75 ","pages":"Article 101334"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2025-05-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144124764","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Exploring the meaning of home for the older adults: A bibliometric analysis of environmental and psychological needs (1969–2023)","authors":"Milad Olfat","doi":"10.1016/j.jaging.2025.101332","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jaging.2025.101332","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>As the older adult population continues to grow and modern lifestyles evolve, many older adults encounter challenges in adapting to contemporary homes or transitioning to new living environments. Factors such as loneliness, diminished physical capabilities, and relocation to institutional care settings further exacerbate these difficulties. Designing supportive environments that cater to the psychological needs of older adults can enhance their sense of place attachment, comfort, and overall well-being. This paper aims to present a comprehensive bibliometric review of the existing body of research on the meaning of home, addressing knowledge gaps related to the psychological needs of older adults. The study is based on the analysis of 678 English-language articles indexed in the Scopus database, published between 1969 and 2023. Data were analyzed using VOS Viewer 1.6.20 software, and the PRISMA checklist was employed to ensure accuracy in bibliometric reporting. The findings indicate that research on this topic has predominantly developed around five main domains: “Transactional Processes with the Environment and Factors Affecting Health and Well-being,” “Resilience and Vulnerability in Living Environments,” “Older Adults Care and Welfare Services,” “Architectural Design Principles for Care Environments and Aging Equipment,” and “Independent Living and Modern Technologies.” Nevertheless, expanding the scope to include non-English studies from diverse geographical contexts is expected to contribute to a more comprehensive framework for defining the meaning of home for older adult individuals across different cultures.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47935,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Aging Studies","volume":"73 ","pages":"Article 101332"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2025-05-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143936637","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Age is not just a number: Developing an integrative conceptual framework on age","authors":"José de São José ,&nbsp;Virpi Timonen","doi":"10.1016/j.jaging.2025.101331","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jaging.2025.101331","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Age is omnipresent in our lives and a fundamental element in the organisation of human societies. Age relations, like other power relations, generate social inequality. As a reflection of its importance, age is frequently used in empirical studies in the field of sociology and other social sciences. However, the social theorisation of age is inchoate and dispersed, compromising empirical research on this topic. This article critically analyses relevant conceptual work on age carried out so far in social sciences, proposes a conceptual framework inspired by sociological theory that integrates and expands this work, and provides a set of propositions on age. This framework provides a multilevel perspective on age, mapping the sociocultural structures in which age is embedded and exerts its influence, as well as the dynamics that are established between them, allowing for an analysis of the relationship between age-based structures and age-related practices. Furthermore, this more comprehensive framework includes relevant constructs that have rarely been considered. It is expected that this article will encourage more conceptually informed use of age in empirical research.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47935,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Aging Studies","volume":"73 ","pages":"Article 101331"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2025-05-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143894451","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Understanding frailty experiences in Dutch community-dwelling older people: A qualitative phenomenological study","authors":"R.D.J. Golbach ,&nbsp;N. Kleinenberg-Talsma ,&nbsp;H. Jager-Wittenaar ,&nbsp;J.S.M. Hobbelen ,&nbsp;E.J. Finnema","doi":"10.1016/j.jaging.2025.101330","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jaging.2025.101330","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>As the population ages, the proportion of frail older people is also increasing. While attention to frailty experiences has increased, how these account to a comprehensive understanding of frailty and its impact on behavior and functioning remains understudied. Therefore, in this study, we aimed to understand how frailty is experienced, and how frailty and frailty experiences affect behavior and functioning from the perspectives of Dutch community-dwelling older people. In this phenomenological qualitative study, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 36 community-dwelling older people (≥65 years). The ‘Tilburg Frailty Indicator’ was administered to measure frailty, 15 of the participants were considered frail. Thematic analysis revealed the following themes and subthemes: 1) frailty experiences: <em>situation related, initiated internally, initiated externally,</em> and <em>being and feeling frail;</em> 2) coping: <em>cognitive efforts, behavioral efforts,</em> and <em>emotional aspects.</em> The distinction between being frail and feeling frail was, among other things, reflected in the temporality of frailty experiences, such as short periods of moments in time experiencing frailty. Personal factors and contexts strongly influence an individual's experiences and multiple coping strategies were discovered, with mindset shaping individual coping strategies. We recommend a personalized approach in which the experiences and capabilities of older people are considered to support them in maintaining or enhancing their well-being.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47935,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Aging Studies","volume":"73 ","pages":"Article 101330"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2025-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143890879","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}