Invitation to the Life Course: Towards new understandings of later life (Society and Aging Series)

invitation To The Life Course: Toward New Understandings Of Later Life Discusses In Depth The Challenges Of Age, Time, And Social Contexts For The Study Of Aging And Later Life. Understanding Aging (as A Process) And Later Life (as A Period) Must Be Accompanied By Serious Attention To The Life Course. This Brings Significant Challenges Related To Time, As Gerontologists Must Describe And Explain Life Patterns Over Many Decades. It Also Brings Significant Challenges Related To Place, As Gerontologists Must Examine How Social Contexts Structure Pathways Into And Through Later Life, And How Those Contexts Affect The Nature And Meaning Of Experiences Along The Way. This Book Is A Natural Extension Of The Editor's Previous Work, Lives In Time And Place: The Problems And Promises Of Developmental Science (baywood, 1999). invitation To The Life Course Explores How Greater Attention To These Matters Might Revolutionize Scholarship On Aging And Later Life. How Might It Shift The Questions We Ask And The Theories We Use? How Might It Alter How We Collect, Analyze, And Interpret Data? And How Might It Affect How We Make And Evaluate Social Policies And Programs? It Also Considers The Barriers That Prevent The Field From Moving In These Directions, And How Those Barriers Might Be Overcome. This Volume Opens By Introducing Life-course Concepts, Principles, And Methods (chapter 1, By Richard Settersten) And Considering Their General Implications For Scholarship On Aging And Later Life (chapter 2, Glen Elder And Monica Kirkpatrick Johnson). It Then Discusses The Specific Spheres Of Work And Retirement (chapter 3, John Henretta), Leisure And Social Participation (chapter 4, Jon Hendricks And Steven Cutler), Family (chapter 5, Gunhild Hagestad), Health And Illness (chapter 6, Linda George), Social Policy (chapter 7, Richard Settersten), And 'successful Aging' (chapter 8, Eva And Boaz Kahana). It Concludes With Extensive Commentaries By Renowned Life-course Scholars Dale Dannefer (chapter 9), Christine Fry (chapter 10), And Leonard Cain (chapter 11). intended Audience: Researchers In Gerontology; Researchers Specializing In Other Periods Of Human Development, Including Childhood, Adolescence, Early Adulthood, And Midlife. Instructors And Upper-level Undergraduate And Graduate Students In These Fields. Given The Interdisciplinary Nature Of The Field Of Human Development, This Book Will Appeal To Those In The Disciplines Of Anthropology, Biology, History, Psychology, And Sociology, And In The Fields Of Medicine And Social Work. This Book Is An Important Resource For Anyone Interested In Contemporary Theory And Research On Aging And The Life Course. Cover 1 Title Page 2 Copyright Page 3 Dedication 4 Table of Contents 6 Acknowledgments 8 Introduction Invitation to the Life Course: The Promise 10 Part I On Life-Course Propositions and Controversies 22 Chapter 1 Propositions and Controversies in Life-Course Scholarship 24 Part II Promises for the General Study of Aging and Later Life 56 Chapter 2 The Life Course and Aging: Challenges, Lessons, and New Directions 58 Part III Promises for Understanding Aging and Later Life in Specific Spheres 92 Chapter 3 The Life-Course Perspective on Work and Retirement 94 Chapter 4 Leisure in Life-Course Perspective 116 Chapter 5 Interdependent Lives and Relationships in Changing Times: A Life-Course View of Families and Aging 144 Chapter 6 What Life-Course Perspectives Offer the Study of Aging and Health 170 Part IV Promises for Social Policy 198 Chapter 7 Rethinking Social Policy: Lessons of a Life-Course Perspective 200 Part V Promises for Understanding Successful Aging 232 Chapter 8 Contextualizing Successful Aging: New Directions in an Age-Old Search 234 Part VI Further Promises for Scholarship on Aging and Later Life 266 Chapter 9 Whose Life Course Is It, Anyway? Diversity and "Linked Lives" in Global Perspective 268 Chapter 10 The Life Course as a Cultural Construct 278 Chapter 11 Age-Related Phenomena: The Interplay of the Ameliorative and the Scientific 304 Contributors 336 Author Index 340 Subject Index 352 In Michael Ondaatje's (1992, p.261) novel The English Patient, the character Almasy has a profound revelation as he carries his dead lover Katherine into the desert: We die containing a richness of lovers and tribes, tastes we have swallowed, bodies we have plunged into and swum up as if rivers of wisdom, characters we have climbed into as if trees, fears we have hidden in as if caves.