Ageing and Development (review)
- Ageing and Development
Aging as a Social Process est un ouvrage exhaustif qui vise à élucider les aspects physiologiques, psychologiques et sociaux du vieillissement et à établir des liens entre ces aspects, mais qui met essentiellement l'accent sur les processus sociaux liés aux expériences individuelles et à la force des structures sociales. L'ouvrage a été mis à jour et bonifié afin de tenir compte de la diversité croissante en matière de vieillissement et d'aînés ainsi que de la croissance concomitante dans le domaine de la recherche. L'approche qui consiste à envisager ces enjeux en fonction d'un cycle de vie, et à faire fait état de la diversité des expériences vécues par des individus qui passent à travers les différentes étapes de la vie en étant exposés à différents contextes historiques et culturels, permet d'établir des liens entre les nombreux sujets abordés dans ce texte. Ce livre est fortement recommandé pour les étudiants qui suivent des cours de sociologie du vieillissement, d'introduction à la gérontologie ou d'autres cours connexes. Il s'agit également d'un ouvrage de référence utile pour les personnes qui mènent des recherches ou pour les professionnels qui prennent part à l'élaboration de politiques ou de programmes ciblant les personnes âgées d'aujourd'hui ou de demain.
More researchers are searching the later stages of the lifespan for evidence of continued development. In addition, positive psychology has largely succeeded in making the case that research on positive aspects of health and well-being is at least as important as studies of pathology. Both these forces have strengthened the focus on positive development in adulthood and aging, until it can be argued that normative expectations for aging are for high levels of subjective well-being, functional competence, and autonomy. Consequently, can we now answer Baltes's (1990) question as to what are the limits of optimal aging.
Coleman and O'Hanlon accurately state that their work is not the usual reader in aging and development. Their explicit assumption is that in a reflected-upon life, old age, including in the age of frailty, can still be a meaningful and positive part of the lifespan. With this orientation, they present a constructive approach to human aging, which emphasizes the psychological processes and the social contexts that contribute to emotional, social, and spiritual development in aging. The authors specifically exclude consideration of the physical and psychological deterioration per se that can occur in old age. These negative developmental constraints are discussed only with regard to the challenges that they present to resilient adaptation in old age.
The first section of the book ostensibly focuses on normative developmental models of aging, mainly theories with a psychodynamic basis that emphasize developmental stages and life tasks. As was to be expected, the work of Jung, Erikson, and Levinson is discussed. The presentation is sympathetic, but as the authors themselves admit, these theories, despite the wide-ranging interest they have generated, are still short of substantial research support. Further, again as the authors acknowledge, these theories tend to be viewed as ideal models of adult development and, in the absence of research evidence, are likely to be characterized as prescriptive not descriptive. Coleman and O'Hanlon point out that the hermeneutical approach frequently employed in this type of study can, at best, capture some interesting patterns, not necessarily normative ones. Then why label these models normative developmental patterns? This question is particularly salient when reading the qualitative shifts postulated in the gero-transcendence model of Tornstam (1999). This model postulates a meta-perspective shift in old age from a materialistic and pragmatic view of the world to a cosmic and transcendent one. Tornstam's theorizing clearly is more aspiration than evidence-based conceptual development. As such, it provides an example of what Coleman and O'Hanlon mention elsewhere - how positive expectations of aging, implicitly demanding serenity regardless of life circumstances, can be as cruel as negative expectations of aging.
Coleman and O'Hanlon follow up their opening theoretical...
