Age groups: the elderly

This important book brings together some of the best known international scholars working within a critical gerontology perspective to review and update our understanding of how the field has developed over and provide a challenging assessment of the complex practical and ethical issues facing older people, and those who conduct research on ageing.

This important book addresses a growing international interest in 'age-friendly' communities, examining the conflicting stereotypes of rural communities as either idyllic and supportive or isolated and bereft of services.

In the context of global ageing societies, there are few challenges to the underlying assumption that policies should promote functional health and independence in older people and contain the costs of care. This important book provides such a challenge.

This exciting book challenges many common stereotypes about the nature of family involvement as people age. The book explores diversity and change in the family relationships older people maintain, looking at how family relationships are constructed and organised in later life.

Community and ageing investigates changing concepts and experiences of community into older age and how they play out in housing with care settings, with an overview of how the housing with care sector in the UK and internationally. It explores the impact of a range of factors, from social networks to diversity and the built environment.

How can we understand older people as real human beings, value their wisdom, and appreciate that their norms and purposes both matter in themselves and are affected by those of others? Using a life-course approach this book argues that the complexity and potential creativity of later life demand a humanistic vision of older people and ageing.

This book addresses the shortfall in knowledge regarding older people's attachment to deprived neighbourhoods, offering a re-conceptualisation of environmental gerontology. The author examines new research, challenging the common view that ageing 'in place' is optimal, particularly within areas that present multiple risks to the individual.

A wide range of contributors focus on major issues in ageing such as autonomy, agency, frailty, lifestyle, social isolation, dementia and professional challenges in social work and participatory research.

Drawing together material from a number of different fields the book analyses the meaning and determinants of mental health amongst older populations and offers a critical review of the lifecourse, ageing and mental health debate.

This book offers a unique perspective on ideas about late life as expressed in social policy and socio-cultural constructs of age with lived experience.

The turn to biographical methods in social science is invigorating the relationship between policy and practice. This book shows how biographical methods can improve theoretical understanding of professional practice, as well as enrich the development of professionals, and promote more meaningful practitioner - service user relationships.

A multidisciplinary collection examining how cultural engagement can enhance resilience, reduce social isolation and help older people to thrive and overcome challenging life events and everyday problems associated with ageing.