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One United States Approach to Gerontological Theory Building

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 November 2008

W. Andrew Achenbaum
Affiliation:
Institute of Gerontology, The University of Michigan

Abstract

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Type
Review Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1989

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References

NOTES

1 Frank, L. F., Introduction, in Cowdry, E. V. (ed.), Problems of Ageing, Williams & Wilkins, Baltimore, 1939, xiii.Google Scholar

2 Birren, J. E. (ed.), Handbook of Aging and the Individual: Psychological and Biological Aspects, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1959Google Scholar; Tibbitts, C. (ed.), Handbook of Social Gerontology, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1960Google Scholar; Burgess, E. W. (ed.), Aging in Western Societies, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1960.Google Scholar

3 Binstock, R. H. and Shanas, E. (eds.), Handbook of Aging and the Social Sciences, Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York, 1976, ii.Google Scholar

4 Walker, A., Ageing and the social sciences: the North American way, Ageing and Society, 7, 2 (1987), 240.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 Phillipson, C. and Walker, A., The case for a critical gerontology, in Di Gregorio, S. (ed.), Social Gerontology: New Directions, Croom Helm, London, 1987, 1, 12.Google Scholar

6 Walker, , Loc. cit., p. 240Google Scholar. See also Walker, A. and Phillipson, C., Introduction, and Townsend, P., Ageism and social policy, in Phillipson, C. and Walker, A. (eds.), Ageing and Social Policy: A Critical Assessment, Gower, London, 1986, 144.Google Scholar

7 Merton, R. K., On Theoretical Sociology: Five Essays, Old and New, Free Press, New York, 1967Google Scholar; Skinner, Q. (ed.), The Return of Grand Theory in the Human Sciences, Cambridge University Press, 1985Google Scholar; Riley, M. W., Age and ageing: from theory generation to theory testing, in Blalock, H. M. Jr., (ed.), Sociological Theory and Research: A Critical Appraisal, Free Press, New York, 1980, 339348.Google Scholar

8 Achenbaum, W. A., Can gerontology be a science?, Journal of Aging Studies, 1, 1 (1987), 318.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 Neugarten, B. L., The aging society and my academic life, in Riley, M. W. (ed.), Sociological Lives, Sage, Newbury Port, California, 1988, 104.Google Scholar

10 Readers of this journal might profit from reading one North American investigator whose work is rich in theoretical insight and bibliographic citations. See Featherman, D. L. and Lerner, R. M., Ontogenesis and sociogenesis: problematics for theory and research about development and socialization across the life span, American Sociological Review, 50, 4 (1985), 659676CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Featherman, D. L., Biography, society, and history: individual development as a population process, in Sorenson, A. A., Weinert, F. E. and Sherrod, L. R. (eds.), Human Development and the Life Course, Lawrence A. Erlbaum, Hillsdale, New Jersey, 1986, 99152Google Scholar. Featherman's work gets three lines in the name index of Emerging Theories of Aging.

11 Lynd, R. S., Knowledge for What?: The Place of Social Science in American Culture, Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 1939Google Scholar; Haveman, R. H., Poverty Policy and Poverty Research: The Great Society and the Social Sciences, University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, Wisconsin, 1987Google Scholar. On the possibility that a failure of nerve impedes scientists from speaking out on public affairs, see Burnham, J. C., How Superstition Won and Science Lost, Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1987.Google Scholar

12 Moody, H. R., The Abundance of Life: Human Development Policies for an Aging Society, Columbia University Press, New York, 1988, p. 297, n. 8Google Scholar. Academic social reformers on both sides of the Atlantic, including Peter Townsend, Robert Reich and Michael Walzer, have shaped Moody's perspective.

13 Moody, H. R., Abundance of Life, 262.Google Scholar

14 ibid., 12. This eclecticism enables him to draw insights from Olson, L. K., The Political Economy of Aging, Columbia University Press, New York, 1982Google Scholar; my Shades of Gray, Little Brown, Boston, 1983; and Crystal, S. M., America's Old Age Crisis, Basic Books, New York, 1982Google Scholar. It also invites, of course, criticism across the spectrum.

15 Achenbaum, W. A., Old Age in the New Land, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1978, 117120Google Scholar; Haber, C., Beyond Sixty-Five, Cambridge University Press, New York, 1983, ch. 3CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Blumenthal, H. T. (ed.), Handbook of Diseases of Aging, Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York, 1983Google Scholar. It is interesting to note that Blumenthal's volume was not issued as part of the Birren series and that the publisher chose not to market together books with similar format.

16 Rowe, J. W. and Kahn, R. L., Human aging: usual and successful, Science, 237, 10 07 1987, 143149CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Adelman, R. C., The importance of basic biological science to gerontology, Journal of Gerontology, 43, 1 (1988), B1–B2.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

17 On gender differences in the meanings of age and aging, see Gutmann, D., Reclaimed Powers, Basic Books, New York, 1987Google Scholar; Pifer, A., and Bronte, L. (eds.), Our Aging Society, W. W. Norton, New York, 1986Google ScholarPubMed; Troll, L. E., New thoughts on old families, The Gerontologist, 28, 5 (1988), 586591CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed. On policy matters, Burkhauser, R. V. and Holden, K. C. (eds.), A Challenge to Social Security, Academic Press, New York, 1982Google Scholar; Achenbaum, W. A., Social Security, Cambridge University Press, New York, 1986.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

18 See, for instance, Achenbaum, W. A. and Stearns, P. N., Old age and modernization, The Gerontologist, 18, 3 (1978), 307312CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Komoto, T., Japan in the Year 2000, Japan Times, Tokyo, 1983Google Scholar; Myles, J., Old Age in the Welfare State, Little Brown, Boston, 1984Google Scholar; Van Tassel, D. D. and Stearns, P. N. (eds.), Old Age in a Bureaucratic Society, Greenwood Press, Westport, Connecticut, 1986Google Scholar; Laslett, P., The emergence of the third age, Ageing and Society, 7, 2 (1987), 133160CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hareven, T. and Plakans, A. (eds.), Family History at the Crossroads, Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 1987.Google Scholar