Constructing the Life Course offers a social constructionist perspective on personal experience through time. The text shows the variety of ways people use life course imagery in their everyday lives and makes a useful addition to family studies or gerontology courses.

Occupational Therapy and Life Course Development is an invaluable work book for professional practice. It provides a tool to help both students and qualified professionals develop and enhance a framework for their practice that supports all individuals and settings in a holistic and inclusive way. Much of the book is organised as a work book based around a single case study. It includes theory related to life span development and managing change, and also exercises for readers to complete in order to apply the theory to practice. Chapters span such key topics as the client in context; life events; transition and loss; the management of stress; and planful decision making. The book emphasises how issues of life course development are as relevant to health and social care professionals as they are to their clients. A number of exercises invite readers to reflect on their own life course, and there chapters both on becoming and belonging as an occupational therapist, and on developing professional practice.

"With great rigour, yet an enviable lightness of touch, Susan Pickard has written an engaging and accessible book that students will love." - Rosaline Gill, City University London "A scholarly tour de force that brings into focus the various disciplines, histories, literatures and knowledges that have transformed us into modern subjects of age." - Stephen Katz, Trent University Age Studies takes an invigorating approach to the study of age and ageing in contemporary society. Encompassing ageing throughout the life course, taking in childhood, adolescence, mid-life and older age, and situated explicitly within a sociological disciplinary framework, Age Studies: Explores current social science debates on the study of ageing linking these to core sociological concepts. Links theory and application, using a variety of examples and international case studies Includes chapter summaries, further reading and guided questions. A thought-provoking companion to advanced undergraduates and postgraduate student studying ageing, older people, social gerontology and related courses.

Rapid population aging, once associated with only a select group of modern industrialized nations, has now become a topic of increasing global concern. This volume reframes aging on a global scale by illustrating the multiple ways it is embedded within individual, social, and cultural life courses. It presents a broad range of ethnographic work, introducing a variety of conceptual and methodological approaches to studying life-course transitions in conjunction with broader sociocultural transformations. Through detailed accounts, in such diverse settings as nursing homes in Sri Lanka, a factory in Massachusetts, cemeteries in Japan and clinics in Mexico, the authors explore not simply our understandings of growing older, but the interweaving of individual maturity and intergenerational relationships, social and economic institutions, and intimate experiences of gender, identity, and the body.

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Aging & the Life Course: Social & Cultural Contexts provides an accessible, up-to-date introduction to the study of aging and the life course from a distinctly sociological perspective. It explores the sociocultural dimensions of aging while encouraging critical thinking about the diversity of aging experiences, societal attitudes toward older adults, the politics and economics of growing old, and end-of-life resources. Throughout the text, Deborah Lowry emphasizes the relevance of the material for working with older populations, understanding social policy and policy debates, improving communities, relating to others, and understanding ourselves. Organized into four major sections, Part I introduces students to fundamental demographic, sociological, and life course concepts; part II explores the experiences and conditions of aging, especially in particular groups; and part III presents current research on older adults’ engagement in work, family, social networks, and sex. Finally, Part IV addresses themes of aging and social change.

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.