The Cultural Context of Aging: Worldwide Perspectives, 3rd Edition / Edition 3

by Jay Sokolovsky

Overview

The consequences of global aging will influence virtually all areas of life to be encountered in the 21st century, including the biological limits of healthy longevity, the generational contract and nature of family ties, the makeup of households and communities, symbolic representations of midlife and old age and attitudes toward disability and death. The new edition (3rd) of the award winning book The Cultural Context of Aging: World-Wide Perspectives covers all these topics and more. This unique volume uses a qualitative, case study approach to look at the rapidly emerging new cultural spaces and social scripts through which mid and late life are being encountered globally. It is completely revised with over thirty new original works covering China, Japan, Denmark, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Peru, indigenous Amazonia, rural Italy and the ethnic landscape of the U.S.

A new feature of the book includes an integrated set of web book articles listed in the table of contents and available on the book's web site: (www.stpt.usf.edu/jsokolov/webbook). This is in addition to the largest web support of its kind providing literature updates, educational activities and even access to power points, graphics and video supplementing the text.

In this one of a kind edited text, readers will encounter the laughing clubs of India, the centenarian diet plan of Okinawa, the waltzing elders of urban China, aging in a true woman-centered society, the elderscapes of Florida, the challenge of "Conscious Aging," Japan's robotic granny minders, Denmark's "Flexsecurity" long-term care system; the Midwest's elder-friendly communities, "Eldertopia" and the "Green House" model for dementia care. Welcome to your future!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780275993023
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	12/30/2008
Edition description:	Third Edition
Pages:	808
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.50(d)

About the Author

JAY SOKOLOVSKY is Professor and Director of Anthropology at the University of South Florida, St. Petersburg. Sokolovsky specializes in cross-cultural, comparative gerontology and has written several books, as well as more than 30 articles and book chapters, dealing with this subject. In his research he has studied aging in a Mexican peasant village, New York's inner-city, Tampa, Florida, the new town of Columbia, Maryland, and in urban neighborhoods in Croatia and England. He has edited Growing Old in Different Societies and is coauthor of Old Men of the Bowery. Sokolovsky is cofounder and former President of the Association of Anthropology and Gerontology, former President of the Association of Anthropology and Gerontology, and Founder of the International Commission on Aging of the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Culture, Aging and Context
The Demography of an Aging World by Kevin Kinsella
Complaint Discourse, Aging and Caregiving Among the Ju/'huansi of Botswana by Harriet Rosenberg
When Killing Is Acceptable: The Moral Dilemma Surrounding Assisted Suicide in America and Other Societies by Anthony Glascock
African Widows, Culture and Social Change: Case Studies from Kenya by Maria Cattell
Culture and the Meaning of a Good Old Age by Chris Fry et al.
The Cultural Construction of Intergenerational Ties
Grandparenting Styles: The Contemporary American Indian Experience by Joan Weibel-Orlando
Without Parents: Multigenerational Perspectives on Caregiving by Maria Vesperi
Exchange and Reciprocity Among Two Generations of Japanese and American Women by Hiroko Akiyama, Toni Antonucci, and Ruth Cambell
Aging, Modernization, and Societal Transformation
Aging, Family and Community Development in a Mexican Indian Village by Jay Sokolovsky
Gender and Duty in Japan's Aged Society: The Experience of Family Caregiving by Brenda Robb Jenike
Aging and the Middle Way: A Political Economy of Aging Policy in Sweden by Bruce Zelkovitz
The Ethnic Dimension in Aging: Culture, Context and Creativity
Bringing Culture Back Home: Aging, Ethnicity and Family Support by Jay Sokolovsky
Age of Wisdom: Elderly Black Women in Family and Church by Jane W. Peterson
The Social and Cultural Context of Adaptive Aging by South East Asian Elders by Barbara Yee
The Dynamics of Ethnic Identity and Bereavement Among Older Widowers by Mark Luborsky and Robert Rubinstein
Networks and Community: Environments for Aging
Support Systems of Rural Older Women: A Comparison of the U.S. and Denmark by Dena Shenk and Kitter Christiansen
An Organization for the Elderly, by the Elderly: A Senior Center in the United States by Yohko Tsuji
History, Community Context and the Perception of Old Age in a Rural Irish Town by Jeannette Dickerson Putman
Uncle Ed, Super Runner and the Fry Cook: Old Men in the Street by Jay Sokolovsky and Carl Cohen
One Thousand Points of Blight: Old Homeless and Female by Jay Sokolovsky
Health, Aging and Culture
Between Humans and Ghosts: The Decrepit Elderly in a Polynesian Society by Judith Barker
Dementia in Cultural Context: Development and Decline of a Caregiver Support Group in a Latin Population by J. Neil Henderson
Long-Term Care and the Disabled Elderly in Urban China by Charlotte Ikels
Aging, Disability and Ethnicity: An African American Woman's Story by Monika Deppen, Mark Luborsky and Jessica Scheer
Liminality in an American Nursing Home: The Endless Transition by Renee Shield
2IUnderstanding Life Backwards by Joel Savishinsky
Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

This third edition of the study of aging in many cultures, edited by Sokolovsky (anthropology, University of South Florida) has been much expanded and updated. . . . The book is replete with supporting statistics, notes and an extensive bibliography.” —Reference & Research Book News

From the Publisher