Centre for Policy on Ageing



Is there space for ethnography? — reflections on evaluating a medical student befriending scheme with elderly people
Author(s)	Ruth Pinder, Sheila Hillier
Journal title	Education and Ageing, vol 16, no 2, 2001
Pages	pp 203-228
Keywords	Visiting ; Sheltered housing ; Teaching hospitals ; Qualitative Studies ; London.
Annotation	Using a detailed case study of a sheltered housing project in the East End of London where medical and dental students from St Bartholomew's and the Royal London Hospital were initiating a befriending scheme with older residents, this article reflects on the struggle over "how to see". The assumptions behind traditional experimental research are considered, such as issues of process: "does an intervention work" and "how does a project work"? The second part explores how the hard outcome measures and demands for immediate policy relevance anticipated by research sponsors jarred with the tentative and subtle learning process taking place in the housing complex. The article reflects on the problems and possibilities of doing ethnography in health policy research, and asks how might evaluation be in a better position to create quality rather than simply to monitor it - to act as a critical friend rather than judge? (RH).
Accession Number	CPA-011127205 A
Classmark	NP: KLA: V6: 3DP: 82L
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...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing.