Valuing Older People: A Humanist Approach to Ageing (Ageing and the Lifecourse)

314 Pages·2009·5.12 MB·English

by  Ricca Edmondson

Edited by
RICCA EDMONDSON •
HANS-JOACHIM VON KONDRATOWITZ
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Valuing Older People
A humanist approach
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Valuing older people
A humanist approach to ageing
Edited by Ricca Edmondson and
Hans-Joachim von Kondratowitz

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This edition published in Great Britain in 2009 by
The Policy Press
University of Bristol
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© The Policy Press 2009
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested.
ISBN 978 1 84742 291 0 paperback
ISBN 978 1 84742 292 7 hardcover
The right of Ricca Edmondson and Hans-Joachim von Kondratowitz to be identified as
editors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the 1988 Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act.
All rights reserved: no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording, or otherwise without the prior permission of The Policy Press.
The statements and opinions contained within this publication are solely those of the
editors and contributors and not of the University of Bristol or The Policy Press. The
University of Bristol and The Policy Press disclaim responsibility for any injury to persons
or property resulting from any material published in this publication.
The Policy Press works to counter discrimination on grounds of gender, race, disability, age
and sexuality.
Cover design by The Policy Press
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Contents
List of tables and figures v
Notes on contributors vi
Acknowledgements x
Foreword xi
Judith Phillips
Introduction 1
Ricca Edmondson and Hans-Joachim von Kondratowitz
part one: religion, spirituality, cultural resources and creating meaning
one Religious belonging and spiritual questioning: a Western European 23
perspective on ageing and religion
Peter G. Coleman
two Spirituality: a means for achieving integration in personal and 37
community spheres in an ageing Singapore
Kalyani K. Mehta
three Integrating the sacred in creative ageing 51
Michele Dillon
four Atheist convictions, Christian beliefs or ‘keeping things open’? 73
Patterns of world views among three generations in East German
families
Monika Wohlrab-Sahr
five Beyond dialogue: entering the fourth space in old age 91
Haim Hazan
part Two: norms, values and gerontology
six The long road to a moralisation of old age 107
Hans-Joachim von Kondratowitz
seven How to balance generations: solidarity dilemmas in a European 123
perspective

Svein Olav Daatland
eight Pension systems and the challenge of population ageing: what does 139
the public think?
Dina Frommert, Dirk Hofäcker, Thorsten Heien and Hans-Jürgen Andreß
nine Ethos of care and environment in long-stay care settings: impacts on 161
residents’ lives
Adeline Cooney and Kathy Murphy
ten Engineering substantially prolonged human lifespans: 177
biotechnological enhancement and ethics
al Peter Derkx
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Valuing older people
part Three: ageing and wisdom? Conflicts and contested developments
eleven Wisdom: a humanist approach to valuing older people 201
Ricca Edmondson
twelve Social practices, moral frameworks and religious values in the lives 217
of older people
Carmel Gallagher
thirteen ‘Woo-hoo, what a ride!’ Older people, life stories and active ageing 233
Lorna Warren and Amanda Clarke
fourteen Does eldership mean anything in the contemporary West? 249
James Nichol
fifteen Talk about old age, health and morality 261
Outi Jolanki
afterwords
sixteen Exploring positive images of ageing: the production of calendars 277
Eileen Fairhurst and Sue Baines
seventeen Gateways to humanistic gerontology 283
Ronald J. Manheimer
Index 289

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list of tables and figures
Tables
6.1 Social representations of old age in modernity: distributional dynamic 118
and presence of agents in socialisation
7.1 (A) per cent in support for filial responsibility norms, 130
(B) preference for care provider and
(C) preference for housing arrangement, by country, age 25+
7.2 Multiple linear regression of support for filial responsibility norms in 132
Norway and Spain, age 25+
7.3 Logistic regression of preference for services (over family care) and 133
institutional care (over living with a child) by country, age 25+
8.1 Welfare regimes and institutional characteristics 147
8.2 Exact wording of ‘internal solutions’ items in 2001 and 2004 149
8.3 (Strong) support and ranking of internal solutions, 2001 151
8.4 Preference ranking of internal solutions, 2004 152
8.5 Support and relative ranking of external solutions (directly 154
pensions related), 2001
8.6 Support and relative ranking of external solutions (other policy 155
areas), 2001
Figures
7.1 Support for prescriptive filial norms among mothers in Spain, by age 132
7.2 Per cent in preference for nursing home over living with a child among 134
mothers in Spain and Norway, by age
8.1 Old-age dependency ratio, 2000 and 2050 140
8.2 Perception of d emographic ageing as a ‘major problem’, 2001 150
8.3 Confidence in the future of pensions, 2004 150
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Valuing older people
notes on contributors
Hans-Jürgen Andreß studied social sciences and research methods at the
universities of Frankfurt/Main and Michigan (Ann Arbor). He gained his PhD at
the University of Frankfurt/Main in 1983 and is currently Professor for Empirical
Social and Economic Research at the University of Cologne, Germany. He
has published in the field of labour markets, poverty research, social policy, and
multivariate statistical methods.
Sue Baines is Reader in Social Policy at the Research Institute for Health
and Social Change, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK. Her studies of
marginal self-employment, rural small businesses and artistic livelihoods have
been sponsored by the Economic and Social Research Council, the Joseph
Rowntree Foundation and Arts Council England. She is currently interested in
volunteering as well as notions of participation, interactivity and co-production
in the research process.
Amanda Clarke is a senior lecturer in the Centre of Advanced Nursing Studies
at the University of Aberdeen, UK. She has worked closely with older adults in
clinical practice as a nurse and in health care research. Her main interests include
developing innovative ways of working with older people as research participants,
co-researchers and peer educators in research about pain and the end of life.
Peter G. Coleman has a joint professorial appointment in psychogerontology
between the schools of psychology and medicine at the University of
Southampton, UK. Besides working on the major psychopathologies of later life,
he has contributed to the developmental psychology of ageing and is the author
(with Ann O’Hanlon) of Ageing and development: Theories and research.
Adeline Cooney is a senior lecturer in the School of Nursing and Midwifery,
National University of Ireland, Galway. She trained as a nurse and has a background
in clinical nursing and nurse education. Her research focuses on older people

and, in particular, on the quality of life of older people living in both community
and long-stay care settings.
Svein Olav Daatland is a research professor and a social psychologist at Norwegian
Social Research (NOVA), Oslo. He has been active in several Scandinavian and
European comparative studies of ageing and later life. His publications include
Ageing and diversity (with Simon Biggs) and Aldring som provokasjon (Ageing as a
provocation), as well as work on age identifications, intergenerational solidarity and
the family–welfare state balance.
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Notes on contributors
Peter Derkx is Professor of Humanism and Worldviews at the University for
Humanistics at Utrecht, the Netherlands. He chairs the research project Ageing
Well: Wellbeing, Meaning and Human Dignity. His main fields of interest are the
theory of humanism as a worldview, as well as science, technology and meanings
of life. His publications include ‘Substantial life extension and meanings of life’,
as well as other work taking a humanist view of genetic enhancement, ageing
well and meaning frames.
Michele Dillon was educated at University College Dublin, and the University
of California, Berkeley. She is currently Professor of Sociology at the University
of New Hampshire, USA. Recent books include In the course of a lifetime: Tracing
religious belief, practice, and change (with Paul Wink), and Introduction to sociological
theory: Theorists, concepts, and their applicability in the twenty-first century. She is a
former chair of the religion section of the American Sociological Association,
and currently President of the Association for the Sociology of Religion.
Ricca Edmondson is a senior lecturer in the School of Political Science and
Sociology at the National University of Ireland, Galway. After being educated
at the Universities of Lancaster and Oxford, she carried out research at the Max
Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin before moving to Ireland.
Her interests include ageing and the sociology of wisdom, ethnographic methods,
intercultural understanding, rhetorical argumentation and the history of political
thought. Her books and editions include work on rhetoric, argumentation and
power, the sociology and culture of Ireland, health promotion and environmental
argument. She co-organises the Research Network on Ageing in the European
Sociological Association.
Eileen Fairhurst is Professor of Health and Ageing Policy at Manchester
Metropolitan University, UK. She has published widely in the sociology of ageing,
on topics such as qualitative methods, the body in mid-life, memories and life
histories, social organisation of space in sheltered housing, assessments of time
in the context of paid and unpaid work, and gender and changing identities of
ageing. Her current research interests include policy ethnographies and cross-

generational relationships.
Dina Frommert studied sociology, social psychology and media studies at the
universities of Düsseldorf and Cape Town. Currently she works for the German
Federal Pension Insurance as a specialist in empirical research and survey data,
focusing on applied pension policy research.
Carmel Gallagher is a lecturer in sociology in the School of Social Sciences and
Law, Dublin Institute of Technology. She obtained her PhD from the National
al University of Ireland, Galway in 2005 for a study now published as The community
ateri life of older people in Ireland, and continues to work and publish in this area.
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Valuing older people
Haim Hazan is a professor of social anthropology and sociology at Tel Aviv
University. His areas of research include ageing, community, total institutions,
globalisation, nationalism and anthropological theory. Among his books are: The
limbo people (1980); A paradoxical community (1990); Managing change in old age
(1992); Old age: Constructions and deconstructions (1994); From first principles (1996)
and Simulated dreams (2000).
Thorsten Heien studied social sciences and economics at the universities of
Osnabrueck and Bielefeld. He received his PhD in sociology from the University
of Bielefeld. Currently working as senior consultant for TNS Infratest Social
Research (Munich), he is mainly engaged in large-scale surveys dealing with
social policy issues. He has also published on attitudinal research.
Dirk Hofäcker studied sociology and economics at the universities of Bielefeld
and St Petersburg. From 2002 to 2006, he worked in the research project GlobaLife:
Life Courses in the Globalization Process at Bamberg University. Currently he is
a researcher at the Institute for Family Research at Bamberg University, Germany,
and coordinates TransEurope, the international social science research network
funded by the European Science Foundation. He specialises in comparative life
course questions, welfare state and labour market research, attitudinal research
and quantitative methods of social science data analysis.
Outi Jolanki is a researcher in the Department of Social Sciences and Philosophy,
University of Jyväskylä, Finland, in a research project on combining work and
assisting older relatives. She is also finalising her PhD thesis, on which she has
published several articles, at the Tampere School of Public Health, University of
Tampere. Her research interests include experiential and moral aspects as well
as cultural representations of old age; also, health, identity and intergenerational
relations, and qualitative methods.
Ronald J. Manheimer has served as founding director of the North Carolina
Center for Creative Retirement at the University of North Carolina at Asheville,
where he is also Research Associate Professor of Philosophy.

Kalyani K. Mehta is a professor in the Department of Social Work, National
University of Singapore. She has published widely on topics within the field of
social gerontology. As a nominated member of the Singapore Parliament, she
advocates on policies and services for older people and has been invited regularly
to give presentations at international and regional conferences.
Kathy Murphy is Professor and Head of the School of Nursing and Midwifery,
National University of Ireland, Galway. Her clinical experience was in accident
al and emergency and older people’s services. Her current research interest is older
ateri people and chronic disease management, and she has been a member of national
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Notes on contributors
research teams undertaking research on the quality of life of older people in
Ireland.
James Nichol worked for many years in health promotion and health promotion
management in Britain and New Zealand. While in New Zealand he managed an
older people’s mental health promotion project based in Auckland. Since returning
to the UK and completing his doctorate, he has been involved in research for
the University of the West of England, Bristol on older people’s wellbeing, and
on the role of complementary therapies within the National Health Service for
the University of Bristol.
Hans-Joachim von Kondratowitz studied sociology, political science and
history at the Free University of Berlin, at the University of Saarbrücken and at
Washington University, St Louis. After working as assistant professor of sociology
in Munich and as visiting professor for social gerontology at the University of
Kassel, he is now a senior researcher at the German Centre of Gerontology in
Berlin. He is also president of the social section (ESR) of IAGG-ER. His interests
include international comparisons of long-term care arrangements, older people
and family strategies in transnational migration, the development of welfare
cultures, cultural definitions of ageing and community projects on ageing.
Lorna Warren is a lecturer in the Department of Sociological Studies at the
University of Sheffield, UK. She has been involved in a number of studies looking
at social care and older people, and is particularly interested in exploring new
ways of working with older people in understanding their experiences of ageing
and care.
Monika Wohlrab-Sahr is qualified in both sociology and protestant theology.
She is Professor of Cultural Sociology at the University of Leipzig and has been
a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley, as well as a Fernand
Braudel Fellow at the European University in Florence. She has published in the
fields of the sociology of religion, the sociology of culture, biographical research
and qualitative methodology.

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