Ageing in Society: Introduction to Social Gerontology - Tapa dura

This textbook introduces the reader to the main approaches to understanding ageing. Each chapter has been specially commissioned by an expert in the field. Drawing on theoretical perspectives from sociology, psychology and biology, the authors show how each perspective focuses on different aspects of ageing, makes particular assumptions, uses concepts in different ways, poses specific questions and arrives at different explanations of the ageing process. The reader is encouraged to be critical of studies which view old age as a social problem, and those which stress the negative quality of public attitudes to old age. By explaining issues of ageing within the perspective of the whole life span and taking a multidisciplinary perspective the authors present a more positive view of human ageing.