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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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| Beliefs about elderly people among social workers and the general public in Hong Kong | | Author(s) | Chau-Kiu Cheung, Cheung-Ming Chan, Jik-Joen Lee |
| Journal title | Journal of Cross-Cultural Gerontology, vol 14, no 2, June 1999 |
| Pages | pp 131-152 |
| Keywords | Social workers ; Attitudes to the old of general public ; Ageism ; Theory ; Social surveys ; Hong Kong. |
| Annotation | Social learning theory expects the social worker to hold more favourable beliefs about older people, and scapegoat theory expects one having higher self-esteem to be so. The role of social work and self-esteem may be factors explaining ageism at the individual level. This Hong Kong study surveyed the general public, social workers, students and older people to: determine the relative extent of ageism in terms of beliefs about physical, social and psychological dimensions of older people; and second, test hypotheses deriving from social learning and scapegoat theories. 902 respondents younger than 60 were more favourable regarding the social dimension and less so regarding the psychological dimension of beliefs about older people. Those with higher self-esteem tended to be more favourable in beliefs about older people's social and psychological dimensions, and less so about the physical dimension. Although gerontological social workers were more favourable in beliefs regarding older people's social dimension than others, this difference might be attributable to higher self-esteem. Hence the role of social work did not necessarily improve one's image of older people in Hong Kong. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-991012220 A |
| Classmark | QR: TOB: B:TOB: 4D: 3F: 7DR |
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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