ABSTRACT

Critical Gerontology Comes of Age reflects on how baby boomers, caretakers, and health professionals are perceiving and adapting to historical, social, political, and cultural changes that call into question prior assumptions about aging and life progression. Through an exploration of earlier and later-life stages and the dynamic changes in intergenerational relations, chapter authors reexamine the research, methods, and scope of critical gerontology, a multidisciplinary field that speaks to the experiences of life in the 21st century. Topics include Medicare, privatization of home care, incarceration, outreach to LGTBQ elders, migration, and chronic illness. Grounded in innovative research and case studies, this volume reflects multiple perspectives and is accessible to lay readers, advanced undergraduates and graduate students, and professionals in many fields.

chapter 1|18 pages

Introductory Chapter

The Need for, and Fruits of, a Current Critical Gerontology

chapter 2|13 pages

A First-Generation Critic Comes of Age Revisited

Reflections of a Critical Gerontologist

chapter 4|13 pages

Qualifying the Aging Enterprise

Micro- and Meso-Level Studies in Human Service Organizations

chapter 8|19 pages

Paid Caregiving for Older Adults with Serious or Chronic Illness

Ethnographic Perspectives, Evidence, and Implications for Training

chapter 9|13 pages

Silver Alert

Societal Aging, Dementia, and Framing a Social Problem

chapter 10|12 pages

Aging in Places

chapter 11|27 pages

Meanings of Age and Aging among Older, Incarcerated Women

Implications for Adaptation and Policy Reform

chapter 13|16 pages

Lost in the “Big World”?

Korean College Students Coming of Age in the United States

chapter 14|17 pages

Migration and Gendered Webs of Obligation

Caring for my Elderly Puerto Rican Mother in a Transnational Context