Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rcrh6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T22:56:07.816Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Elderly in Society

Beyond Modernization

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2016

Jon Hendricks
Jon Hendricks*
Affiliation:
University of Kentucky
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Modernization theory provides a successful conceptual model in gerontology for two reasons. First, and most obviously, it establishes an integrative framework for those who focus on cross-cultural and historical patterns of aging in comparative contexts. In addition, together with the age-stratification model (Riley, Johnson, and Foner, 1972), it has fostered a movement away from an emphasis on individualistic, psychological explanations of adjustment and adaptation toward a more macrolevel orientation. As a consequence, research in aging has gradually become more attuned to the importance of structural arrangements and their impact on the roles and statuses accorded the elderly. The purpose of this article is to expand further the focus on societal factors and to suggest a needed redirection of our research interests.

Type
Research Article
Information
Social Science History , Volume 6 , Issue 3 , Summer 1982 , pp. 321 - 345
Copyright
Copyright © Social Science History Association 1982 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

fn00

Author's Note:This article is a revision of a paper presented to the Gerontological Society of America, 1980. I am grateful to Toni Calasanti for her critical assistance and to Dwight Billings for his nudge in the right direction.

References

Achenbaum, W. A. and Stearns, P. N. (1978) “Essay: old age and modernization.“ Gerontologist 18: 307–312.Google Scholar
Averitt, R. T. (1968) The Dual Economy. New York: W. W. Norton.Google Scholar
Baran, P. D. and Sweezy, P. M. (1966) Monopoly Capital. New York: Monthly Review.Google Scholar
Beck, E. M., Horan, P. N., and Tolbert, C. N. III (1980) “Stratification in a dual economy: a sectoral model of earnings determination.” Amer. Soc. Rev. 43: 113–130.Google Scholar
Blauner, R. (1970) “Internal colonialism and ghetto revolt,” pp. 103–121 in Skolnick, J. H. and Currie, E. (eds.) Crisis in American Institutions. Boston: Little, Brown.Google Scholar
Brown, R.D. (1976) Modernization:The Transformation of American Life, 1600-1865. New York: Hill & Wang.Google Scholar
Burgess, E. W. (1960) “Aging in western culture,” pp. 3–28 in Burgess, E. W. (ed.) Aging in Western Societies. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Calasanti, T. and McAllister, C. (1981) “An examination of teaching about retirement: toward a dual economic approach.” Gerontology and Geriatric Education 2: 103–107.Google Scholar
Clark, M. and Anderson, B. G. (1967) Culture and Aging: An Anthropological Study of Older Americans. Springfield, IL: Charles C Thomas.Google Scholar
Cowgill, D. O. (1979) “Aging and modernizations revision of the theory,” pp. 54–67 in Hendricks, J. and Hendricks, C. D. (eds.) Dimensions of Aging. Cambridge: Winthrop.Google Scholar
Cowgill, D. O. and Holmes, L. D. (1972) Aging and Modernization. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.Google Scholar
Dowd, J. J. (1980) Stratification Among the Aged. Monterey, CA: Brooks/Cole.Google Scholar
Eisenstadt, S. N. (1974) “Studies of modernization and sociological theory.” History and Theory 13: 225–252.Google Scholar
Eisenstadt, S. N. (1966) Modernization: Protest and Change. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Fischer, D. H. (1977) Growing Old in America. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Frank, A. G. (1971) Sociology of Development and Underdevelopment of Sociology. New York: Pluto.Google Scholar
Friedmann, H. and Wayne, J. (1978) “Dependency theory: a critique.” Canadian J. of Sociology 2: 399–416.Google Scholar
Galtung, J. (1980) The True Worlds. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Galtung, J. (1972) “A structural theory of imperialism.” African Rev. 1: 93–138.Google Scholar
Gamson, W. A. (1968) “Stable unrepresentation in American society.” Amer. Behavioral Scientist 12: 15–21.Google Scholar
Green, B. (1978-79) “Internal colonialism vs. the elderly: renewal and critique for gerontological theory.” Berkeley J. of Sociology 23: 129–150.Google Scholar
Hechter, M. (1975) Internal Colonialism: The Celtic Fringe in British National Development, 1536-1966. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.Google Scholar
Hoogvelt, A.M.M. (1977) The Sociology of Developing Societies. Atlantic Heights, NJ: Humanities.Google Scholar
Huntington, S. P. (1971) “The change to change: modernization, development, and politics.” Comparative Politics 3: 283–322.Google Scholar
Inkeles, A. and Smith, D. (1974) Becoming Modern: Individual Change in Six Development Countries. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Kennedy, M. (1981) “Introduction: open doors, transnationals and the global division of labor.” Social Problems 28: 339–346.Google Scholar
Langholm, S. (1971) “On the concepts of center and periphery.” J. of Peace Research S.Google Scholar
Laslett, P. (1976) “Societal development and aging,” pp. 3–34 in Binstock, R. H. and Shanas, E. (eds.) Handbook of Aging and the Social Sciences. New York: Van Nostrand-Reinhold.Google Scholar
Lerner, D. (1958) The Passing of Traditional Society. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Levy, M. (1966) Modernization and the Structure of Societies. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Maxwell, R. J. (1980) “The changing status of elders in Polynesian society,” pp. 57–66 in Hendricks, J. (ed.) In the Country of the Old. Farmingdale, NY: Baywood.Google Scholar
Maxwell, R. J. and Silverman, P. (1980) “Information and esteem: cultural considerations in the treatment of the aged,” pp. 3–34 in Hendricks, J. (ed.) In the Country of the Old. Farmingdale, NY: Baywood.Google Scholar
Mazrui, A. A. (1968) “From social Darwinism to current theories of modernization.' World Politics 21: 69–83.Google Scholar
McClelland, D. G. (1967) The Achieving Society. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Memmi, A. (1965) The Colonizer and the Colonized. New York: Orion.Google Scholar
Myles, J. (1980) “The aged, the state, and the structure of inequality,” pp. 317–342 in Harp, J. and Hofley, J. (eds.) Structural Inequality in Canada. Englewood Cliffs, NJ Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Nisbet, R. (1969) Social Change and History: Aspects of Western Theory of Development. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Palmore, E. and Manton, K. (1974) “Modernization and status of the aged: inter national correlations.” J. of Gerontology 29: 205–210.Google Scholar
Parsons, T. (1964) “Evolutionary universals.” Amer. Soc. Rev. 29: 339–357.Google Scholar
Portes, A. (1976) “On the sociology of national development: theories and issues.“ Amer. J. of Sociology 82: 55–85.Google Scholar
Press, I. and McKool, M. (1980) “Social structure and status of the aged: toward some valid cross cultural generalizations,” pp. 47–56 in Hendricks, J. (ed.) In the Country of the Old. Farmingdale, NY: Baywood.Google Scholar
Riley, M. W., Johnson, M., and A., Foner (1972) Aging and Society, Vol. 3: A Sociology of Age Stratification. New York: Russell Sage.Google Scholar
Romein, J. M. (1962) The Asian Century. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.Google Scholar
Rostow, W. W. (1960) The Stages of Economic Growth. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Rubinson, R. (1976) “The world-economy and the distribution of income within states: a cross-national study.” Amer. Soc. Rev. 41: 638–659.Google Scholar
Shanas, E. (1963) “Some observations on cross-national surveys of aging.” Gerontologist 3: 7–9.Google Scholar
Simmons, L. (1960) “Aging in preindustrial societies,” pp. 62–91 in Tibbitts, C. (ed.) Handbook of Social Gerontology. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Simmons, L. (1945) The Role of the Aged in Primitive Society. New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Stout, H. S. (1975) “Culture, structure, and the ‘new’ history: a critique and an agenda.” Computers and the Humanities 9: 213–230.Google Scholar
Tipps, D. C. (1973) “Modernization theory and the comparative study of societies: a critical perspective.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 15: 199–226.Google Scholar
Townsend, P. (1981) “The structured dependency of the elderly.” Aging and Society 1: 5–28.Google Scholar
Wallerstein, I. (1974) “The rise and future demise of the world capitalist system: concepts for comparative analysis.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 16: 387–415.Google Scholar
Zeitlin, I. M. (1972) Capitalism and Imperialism. Chicago: Markham.Google Scholar