ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses a research study of women's experience of the menopause among attendees of menopause support or self-help health groups in England and Scotland during the late 1980s. The research was carried out for a higher degree. The study formed part of an examination of British health education policy and practice more generally. The research findings point to the need for an analysis of the menopause as a social event shaped by historical factors and linked to cultural norms and values. The chapter examines the appropriateness of two contrasting models of health education, the 'conventional' and the 'community development' modes, in relation to women's health information needs concerning the menopause. The research indicates the need to construct a social model of the menopause which places women's experience of this event within the context of their entire lives, and in particular within the context of ageing and the ideology of reproduction.
