Research Committee on
Sociology of Aging RC11
Main theme
Diversities of ageing: Discourses and debates
Programme Coordinator
Andreas Hoff, Univesity of Oxford, UK, andreas.hoff@ageing.ox.ac.uk
Demographic ageing and its consequences for our ageing societies and the people living in them have become popular themes of policy reform, public debate, and even TV talk shows. Population ageing has indeed become a global phenomenon – almost all societies worldwide are affected by changes of their population structures, with a decreasing share of younger people and a growing proportion of older people living in them.
This change has implications for our future societies: Fewer younger people mean fewer children and grandchildren, fewer family members and nurses looking after older people in need of care, fewer young workers in the workplace, they may mean fewer people paying social insurance contributions and taxes, fewer people using schools and universities, etc. More older people imply greater numbers of older voters, older consumers, grandparents and great-grandparents, older workers in the workplace, they may mean more older people paying taxes and social insurance contributions, living in poverty and being socially excluded, or studying at university when others retire, etc.
Population ageing is not necessarily apocalyptic or catastrophic for individuals, societies and their social systems – it means a changing balance between older and younger people in society and the challenge of finding new ways of dealing with each other, of communicating between the generations, of supporting each other, of social inclusion and social integration. Ageing can become a risk factor – or an opportunity for realising new potentials.
Demographic ageing also implies changes in international relations, with ageing societies ‘importing’ younger care workers, who in turn leave behind family members in need of care, or attracting younger workers from disadvantaged regions of the world seeking new opportunities. Furthermore, increasingly individualised life courses, even more so in a globalised world, mean growing “diversities of ageing” – and more diversity in “discourses and debates” about ageing.
RC11 ‘Sociology of Ageing’ wants to provide a platform for these discourses and debates on the diversity of ageing. Therefore, we invite abstracts for papers and abstracts for symposia on any of the topics outlined above or any other topic related to the RC11 Programme theme “Diversities of Ageing: Discourses and Debates”.
Joint session 1: Aging, social exclusion, and social participation in a globalizing world
Joint Session of RC11 Sociology of Aging with RC10 Sociology of Participation, Organizational Democracy and Self Management.
Co-chairs: Julia Rozanova, University of Alberta, Canada rozanova@ualberta.ca and Andreas Hoff, University of Oxford, UK andreas.hoff@ageing.ox.ac.uk
This session adopts the concepts of social exclusion and social participation as a means to explore issues around the cumulative effects of disadvantages faced by older adults in various societal contexts world over. The meanings of participation, inclusion, and exclusion in different spaces and places, their connections to health and well-being, as well as the structural causes of inequalities in later life, will be considered.
The session means to bring the voices of older people to the fore in examining the diversity of experiences, causes, and implications of social exclusion and participation in later life. The private and public domains including, but not limited to, the family, organizational structure, the media, and social policy will be explored as the sites of older adults' resistance and activism against social exclusion.
The session will be organized as a panel. Papers involving older adults and other community stakeholders and/or incorporating non-traditional modes of presentation such as drama/enactment will be welcome alongside traditional academic papers.
Joint session 2: Leisure and the ageing societies
Joint Session of RC11 Sociology of Aging with RC13 Sociology of Leisure
Co-chairs: Ishwar Modi, University of Rajasthan, India iiiss2005modi@yahoo.co.in and Sara Arber, University of Surrey, UK s.arber@surrey.ac.uk
Joint session 3: New forms of interaction between children and older adults in ageing societies
Joint Session of RC11 Sociology of Aging with RC53 Sociology of Childhood
Co-chairs: Doris Bühler-Niederberger, University of Wuppertal, Germany
buehler@uni-wuppertal.de and Andreas Hoff, University of Oxford, UK andreas.hoff@ageing.ox.ac.uk
For a long time, the ‘Sociology of Ageing’ and the ‘Sociology of Childhood Studies’ appeared to be coming from contrasting, if not conflicting ends: public debate and policy discourse towards demographic change suggested growing intergenerational conflict over scarce resources between the younger and the older generations. This alleged ‘war of generations’ caught the attention and imagination of media and policymakers, particularly in the context of unprecedented wealth to be inherited from current pensioner generations coexisting with widespread child poverty, namely of those living with a lone parent or with many siblings.
In contrast to this common, but misleading public perception, this joint session will emphasise commonalities between children and older adults – and explore new ways of intergenerational interaction. Population ageing results in the emergence of a completely new quality of relationships between the younger and the older generations: Increasing longevity enables older people to spend much more time with their grandchildren in good health and to engage with them in new ways (e.g. new forms of leisure activities, jointly spent vacations) – a change from daily routines many children appreciate. Decreasing fertility makes (grand)children more precious – four, or in the new reality of patchwork-families, even more grandparents, competing for the attention of a grandchild is becoming more common.
On the other hand, the parent generation relies increasingly on grandparental childcare support to reconcile family and employment demands. Even traditional grandparent-grandchild interaction may change due to the availability of new means of communication. Furthermore, increasing childlessness or lack of frequent face-to-face interaction between grandparents and grandchildren due to long geographical distances may result in the development of new relationships between older adults and children outside the family. A growing number of NGO projects are trying to match older people with children coming from a lone parent household or children with an isolated older adult.
Papers addressing these or any related themes are invited. Presenters should aim to consider both the child’s and the older person’s perspective, or at least make an effort to accommodate the other side’s views, and/or discuss their reflection in policymaking or public debate.
With this third and final call the deadline for submission of paper/symposia proposals is extended to 30 November 2007. Abstracts of a maximum of 200 words should be sent to: Andreas Hoff, Chair of the Programme Committee, Oxford Institute of Ageing, University of Oxford, at andreas.hoff@ageing.ox.ac.uk .
Paper proposals intended for presentation in a joint session should be sent to BOTH co-chairs (see above)!
Abstracts MUST include:
- Name(s) and affiliation(s) of the author(s)
- Contact details of presenting author (postal address, telephone, fax + email)
- Title of the proposed presentation
- Indicate whether an oral paper or poster presentation
Please note that individuals should not be the first author (the presenter) of more than one paper.
Members of the RC11 Programme Committee
Susan Feldman, Monash University, Australia; Andreas Hoff, University of Oxford, UK (Chair); Virpi Timonen, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland; Lucie Vidovicova, Masaryk University, Czech Republic; and Feliciano Villar, University of Barcelona, Spain.
