Centre for Policy on Ageing



From commodity to community in nursing homes — an impossibility?
Author(s)	Athena McLean
Journal title	Ageing and Society, vol 26, part 6, November 2006
Pages	pp 925-937
Source	http://www.journals.cambridge.org/jid_ASO
Keywords	Nursing homes ; Neighbourhoods, communities etc ; Interpretation ; Social surveys ; United States of America.
Annotation	This article provides a critical discussion of the use of 'community' to describe institutional settings, especially those for cognitively impaired older people confined to special care units. After briefly describing the setting and methodology for a US ethnographic study, this paper reports the problems that were observed in its usage. It then explores alternative formulations of 'community' that challenge the relevance of its application to institutionalised elders. The article concludes by questioning whether community can in fact be realised in commodified institutionalised settings, and suggests some conditions under which it might occur. (RH).
Accession Number	CPA-061113006 A
Classmark	LHB: RH: 4CC: 3F: 7T
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...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing.