SYP-3730 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: The Sociological Imagination, Ageism
Document Summary
Rise of old age as a social category. Social theorists only recently considered age and generation as key factors in examining societies. People who are older are different from people who are younger. Defined generations as a category of people born within a specific historical era or time period. People identify with others born in same time period. Welpton and thompson predicted the relevance in the 1920s/30s. Growing older population (societal aging) viewed as serious problem. Social structure (period): modernization of society affected the status of the old over time. Life stages (age): movement over time from one category to the next. Mills (1959) sociology gives the social context for individual experiences. Personal troubles cannot be solved merely as troubles, but must be understood in terms of public issues . Challenge of understanding aging in general and realizing there are differences between individuals. Solution: understand the patterns of differences to understand meaning of diversity/heterogeneity.
