ABSTRACT

This volume studies age as a basis for social organization by uniting research from the social science disciplines while implementing both cross-cultural and historical perspectives. The contributors, a distinguished interdisciplinary group of scholars, advance our understanding of age structuring by relating the changing societal level processes and individual aging experiences, and examining retirement practices, age and power in society, and cultural conceptions of age.

part 1|20 pages

Introduction

part 2|84 pages

Age and Power

chapter 2|24 pages

Age and Power

Life-Course Trajectories and Age Structuring of Power Relations in East and West Africa

chapter 5|10 pages

Institutional Perspectives on the Life Course:

Challenges and Strategies

part 3|66 pages

Ideological Aspects of Age Structuring

chapter 6|26 pages

Becoming a Human Being In theory and Practice

chinese Views of Human Development

chapter 8|23 pages

Reconstituting Children

Extension of Personhood and Citizenship

part 4|95 pages

Comparative Perspectives on Retirement

chapter 10|21 pages

Stepping Down in Former Times

A Comparative Assessment of “retirement” in Traditional Europe

chapter 12|11 pages

Stepping Down in Former Times

The View from Colonial and 19th-Century America