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This chapter reviews progress in critical gerontology from a British perspective. Drawing on an examination of the first 25 years of the journal Ageing and Society, together with a case study of the interaction between the members and officials of the Welsh Assembly and gerontological advisers, the chapter clarifies who the variety of interest groups now are in the gerontological enterprise; how gerontology has grown and expanded; and what the strengths and weaknesses of current research are. A number of important challenges for gerontology and gerontologists include the paucity of theoretical development in gerontology; the persistent tension for gerontologists about whether to commit to gerontology or to their base discipline or research field; and the often difficult relationship between research and policy formulation and the dominance of biomedical and problem-oriented perspectives.

This Chapter compares key theoretical perspectives on disability and on ageing, engaging especially with critical or cultural studies. It also engages with other areas of scholarship where theorising on disability and ageing could meet. The discussion starts with social theories of ageing, followed by social theories of disability, and then goes on to discuss an aspect of theorising within the sociology of health and illness and, finally, lifecourse perspectives. The Chapter shows how these various fields currently engage, or fail to engage, with the issue of disability in older age, as well as where there may be room for more conversations across them. It concludes that critical studies encompass a range of perspectives in both disability and ageing and often use similar paradigms to explore ageing and disability. However, the two fields largely progress on separate tracks. There is also a need for more exploration of subjective experiences associated with disability in later life.

This chapter assesses Peter's role as the founder in the UK of the sociology of ageing and his influence on the development of critical gerontology. It notes that the article published in the first issue of Ageing and Society in 1981 represented a systematic attempt to provide a new theoretical framework for the study of ageing. It notes that Peter sought to shift the debate from individual approaches to the social processes that led to the structured dependency of people in later life. It then goes on to consider three major issues for structured dependency theory and critical gerontology more generally: the transformation of retirement; the impact of privatisation and deregulation; and finally, the influence of globalisation. It makes a powerful case for a break with the past and for research and policy on older people to be central to wider debates within social policy, sociology and political science, in the overall.

It is an interest in ageing with explicit critical gerontological focus that provides a unique set of understandings about ageing and later life in the 21st century. This chapter describes critical perspectives on ageing societies. Close scholarly analysis of policies affecting the lives of older people offer challenges to gerontologists and ageing individuals. In addition to the life course orientation, other themes thread their way throughout this book. This chapter notes three particular themes and sets of commitments that stand out in all these explorations. First, all the contributors in the book are committed to illuminating and extending the critical gerontological approach conceptually, methodologically and practically. Second, they are all committed to the importance of research and to the full and proper involvement and participation of older people. Third, they demonstrate an engagement with the ‘passionate scholarship’ which, at heart, aims to bring about change.

The chapter sets the foundation for the exploration of precarity and aging from a range of disciplinary backgrounds, critical perspectives, and contexts. It begins by outlining the concept of precarity and precariousness in fields such as geography and labour studies, examines how the concept has been applied to late life, and considers its relevance to the field of ageing. It establishes precarity as lens for drawing attention to insecurity and risk in later life. The chapter then poses a series of questions to guide reflection and ground the debates pursued by authors throughout the book, followed by a brief overview of the chapters ahead.

Chapter 3 explores the contribution of the lifecourse approach and social gerontology to understanding mental health outcomes in later life. It also explores the role played by health and social inequalities. By bringing these perspectives together the Chapter makes visible the ways in which lifecourse inequality and adversity e.g. childhood abuse, create and/or amplify risks to mental health in later life. It also exposes the embedded and structural nature of causative mechanisms. Health inequalities have profound implications for mental health. People from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds suffer disproportionately from common mental disorders, such as depression, across the whole lifecourse. They are also exposed to higher levels of chronic psychosocial stress which, independently and additively, undermines mental wellbeing. These effects are cumulative over the longer term and in more unequal societies; also by exposure to discrimination and oppression. These arguments challenge the dominance of the ‘inevitable decline’ model of ageing exposing a more nuanced complex set of intersecting risks to mental health that are structurally located and socially produced. The role of policy in addressing health inequalities and their social determinants was a key dimension of mental health policy until 2011; since then it has become increasingly uncoupled from the policy agenda.

The chapter summarises the importance of ideas associated with precarity and precariousness for understanding later life. The discussion is framed within the context of the development of critical gerontology. The chapter considers how the concept of precarity extends our understanding of the range of insecurities faced in later life. It also considers how the example of a human rights perspective can be used to challenge some of the vulnerabilities experienced by older people.

The Chapter briefly summarises the book’s chief arguments and those of each of its Chapters. It argues for a broadening out of enquiry across the fields of ageing and disability towards engagement with ageing that is multifaced. It argues that critical gerontology could benefit by adopting an interactional or biopsychosocial model of disability, consistent with human rights approaches to disability. It points to areas within critical scholarship on disability and ageing and within lifecourse perspectives that represent starting points in opening conversations across the two fields. The Chapter outlines some future directions for scholarship and approaches to public policies on ageing. It points to theorising of personal meaning in life from a humanist perspective as offering potential to better communicate understandings of how a sense of value and meaning is achieved at any stage of life. It argues for a more realistic engagement with what it is to age and to live a life of meaning at all of life’s stages, for a more complete picture of the diverse experiences that are involved in disability and ageing, and for development of more realistic societal engagement with disability as an issue relevant to all human beings.

Drawing on ethnographic studies with older adults, as well as the work of feminists from different disciplines, this chapter presents a compelling argument for the need for ‘age research’ to include the researcher him/herself as a subject of observation, analysis and critique. Couched firmly within a critical gerontology perspective and the ‘passionate scholarship’ endorsed in this book, this chapter discusses the relationship between personal and social transformation and describes ethnographic methods that gerontological scholars might use to reflect on their position as researchers, their relationship to older adults, the ethics of their research practices, and the value of their studies beyond academe.

This chapter introduces the issue that will be discussed in the chapters of the volume: the interrelationship between critical and humanistic gerontology. The volume prepares the common ground for these two paradigms that have developed separately with each drawing on their own traditional resources. The purpose of this volume is to explore the extent to which they presuppose and complement each other: as structural analysis and articulations of interpersonal meanings in old age.

Over the last 15 years, frailty has emerged as one of the most powerful constructs in gerontology, geriatrics, and health care delivery. Yet the dominant portrayal and response to frailty tends to mask that frailty is experienced by older people and is historically situated. This chapter suggests that the lens of precarity can be used to focus on the risks and insecurities experienced by older people and convey complex understandings of need in late life. It outlines key lines of thinking with regards to frailty and sketches emerging work on precarity with regards to aging. It then points to two angles to reconsider ‘frailty’ in late life: the politics of frailty, and vulnerability as a means to resituate the response to ‘frail’ subjects. It follows this by outlining the contributions that can be made through an analysis of precarity and concludes with suggestions for theoretical and methodological development.

This Chapter introduces the book, explaining that it is about how older people experience physical or sensory disability. It positions the book’s approach within critical gerontology but engaging with disability studies, aspects of medical sociology and lifecourse studies. The Chapter outlines the rationale for the book, introduces the empirical study that informs it, and refers to its key findings. Its rationale arises from the fact that the meaning that older people give to processes of disablement are largely overlooked, with biomedical approaches dominating approaches to ageing, and with even social science approaches tending to be dominated by concern with ‘third age’ or with older people without impairment. A further rationale relates to the separation of the fields of disability and ageing in public policies, activism, conceptualisation of disability and theorising, despite how disabled people age, and most people who are ageing will experience disability. The empirical study is introduced, outlining how it involved two groups usually considered to be categorically different, one being older people ageing with long-standing disability, the other, older people first experiencing disability with ageing.

Despite much emphasis on mental illness in later life, limited work has focused on mental health. This book aims to address this deficit by exploring, and explaining, mental health outcomes in later life through the lens of critical social gerontology and via the conduit of life course analysis. It adopts an approach underpinned by a commitment to understanding, and making visible, the role of lifecourse, and age related inequalities in creating or amplifying risks to mental health, as well as exploring those issues that afford protection. It aims to offer a critical review of existing discourse and disrupt the ‘taken for granted’ paradigm, including in the dementia arena. This approach not only recognises that mental health in later life is a complex multi-dimensional issue that cuts across time, cohort, social categories and individual experiences but that it is affected by a wide range of lifecourse and age related issues. It also encourages the development of understanding that adopts a wide lens of analysis and of policy and service related responses that reduce risks to mental health during the lifecourse and in later life itself. Further, it engages with the potential to learn from older people’s perspectives and lives.

Social class is a critical factor influencing how people experience later life, and, in particular, the quality of lives they lead. Nevertheless, the sociology of class is firmly located in, and around, the younger and adult ‘territories’ of the life course. Although lip-service is frequently paid to ‘age’ as one of a number of bases of stratification, older people remain excluded from sociological studies of class. When necessary, the class position of older persons is commonly located through their final occupations before retirement. Whilst this strategy may have been valid in the past when most individuals died either before or soon after statutory retirement age, nowadays it is surely limiting to assume that the class career terminates with the onset of retirement, considering that the latter normally signals the start a phase of life characterised by increasing levels of leisure participation and identity reframing. There is no doubt that the expansion of critical gerontology to encompass globalisation, the de-institutionalisation of the life course, and the emergence of a consumer-driven are all highly welcome. Yet, the significance of class in retirement is still a topic that needs addressing.

This chapter introduces the book and the historical background of and current relationship between ageing and everyday studies. It reviews relevant literature leading up to the explanation of the book’s organization on materialities and embodiments and outlines how the book’s chapters address and innovate research in the authors’ respective areas. The introduction claims everyday ageing, with its roots in sociology, is today an expansive interdisciplinary field that includes cultural studies, the Humanities, media and cinema, spatial and consumer fields, and health and technology areas, which in their combination emphasize the extent to which experience and identity for older people are represented, mediated and activated in local contexts.

This chapter provides an introduction to the topic of human rights and dementia. It briefly traces the history of the human rights movement and discusses the significance of the UN Declaration on Human Rights (1948) and how the latter has helped shape other human rights treaties including the UN Convention on the rights of people with disabilities. The latter is a tool which will be used as a compass for analysis throughout the book. The chapter differentiates between human rights and human needs. It critically reviews negative and positive rights in the context of people living with dementia and describes the three generation of rights all people possess by virtue of being human. It argues for the application of a rights based framework to be used by practitioners in dementia care and points to the usefulness of using a social justice /rights based lens to interrogate dementia, extend the contemporary debate and ultimately attempt to improve quality of life and quality of care for all those living with dementia. The main aim of the book, the critical perspectives informing it and some of its distinctive features are highlighted.