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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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On the shoulders of a giant
— the legacy of Matilda White Riley for gerontology | | Author(s) | Dale Dannefer, Peter Uhlenberg, Anne Foner |
| Journal title | Journals of Gerontology: Series B, Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, vol 60B, no 6, November 2005 |
| Pages | pp S296-S304 |
| Source | http://www.geron.org |
| Keywords | Ageing process ; Sociology, Social Science ; Theory ; Literature reviews. |
| Annotation | Matilda White Riley began to study ageing in her mid 50s. Her legacy for gerontology encompasses multiple disciplines and extends to many domains within these disciplines. Although her greatest intellectual legacy is in sociology, she presented a compelling vision of the need for other disciplines to consider the role of social forces in shaping both ageing as an individual, lifelong process, and age as a feature of culture and social systems. This article reviews Riley's theoretical contributions in four areas: articulating age and social systems; identifying fallacies in the interpretation of research on ageing; theorising about social change and structural lag; and presenting social possibilities relating to age integration. The reach of her legacy beyond sociology is considered briefly, and the article notes that gerontologists from many backgrounds have been informed by and rely upon her insights, and thus share the advantage of "standing on the shoulders of a giant". (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-060314228 A |
| Classmark | BG: S: 4D: 64A |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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