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Symposium

Social Research, Policy, and Practice

Sociology and Gerontology: New Perspectives and Vital Issues

Saturday, November 16, 2024
12:00 PM – 1:30 PM PST
Location: Room 205
CE: 1.5

The relationship between sociology and gerontology continues to forge dynamic pathways that cross critical thinking with innovative methodologies and radical advocacy. Sociological studies (and its specialties) have deepened understanding of aging by exploring its social contexts, life-course trajectories, intersecting inequalities, lifestyle cultures, social determinants of health, and political governance. Despite such advances, mainstream research is criticized for resisting their implications by returning ‘to the safety of traditional, individual-level explanations’ (Dannefer 2022). This trend parallels an increasing neglect of the social dimension of aging in technocratic policy-making. This symposium addresses these challenges by presenting research on the vital and everyday issues of aging, both to strengthen the sociological lens in gerontology and to explore new perspectives on social changes affecting aging societies. Stephen Katz reviews the loneliness ‘epidemic’ amongst older adults and the limitations of diagnostic approaches, suggesting instead how historical and qualitative research can formulate loneliness within diversely lived social and material environments. Chris Phillipson examines the sociological consequences of COVID-19 and its impact and consequences for different groups of older people, and discusses the role of social science in contributing to policy responses to the pandemic. Vera Gallistl and Anna Wanka explain the importance of materialist sociological theories in expanding aging relationships to include the interplay of human, more-than-human and non-human actors in digital societies. Amanda Grenier provides a critical overview of the disjuncture between professional knowledge-production and aging experiences, offering a radical proposal for an ethnographic case-study methodology to tackle issues of frailty and mobility.

Learning Objectives:

  • After attending this session, participants will be able to learn and reflect upon some of the new perspectives in the sociology of aging and the pertinent issues and dilemmas of agesim which they explain, while offering new opportunities for theoretical and methodological innovation and application.
  • After attending this session, participants will be able to continue an exchange of ideas with the expert panel of presenters, to explore questions around everyday experiences of older adults in vital areas of loneliness management, COVID policy, material and technological relationships, social care and grounded ethnographic methods.
  • After attending this session, participants will be able to familiarize themselves with trends in international sociological gerontology with presenters from Canada, Austria and the UK, and prepared to define and describe the relevance of critical theory, method and perspective to underpresented groups and marginalized issues in mainstream policy and knowledge-making.

Presentations:

  • 12:00 PM – 1:30 PM PST
    The "Epidemic" of Older Adult Loneliness: Problems of Diagnostic Intervention and Critical Sociological Research

    Individual Symposium Abstract First Author: Stephen Katz, PhD (he/him/his) – Trent University

  • 12:00 PM – 1:30 PM PST
    Extending Gerontological Knowledge and Theory Through Ethnographic Case Study Methods

    Individual Symposium Abstract First Author: Amanda Grenier, PhD (she/her/hers) – University of Toronto

  • 12:00 PM – 1:30 PM PST
    Developing a Sociology of COVID-19: Challenges and Priorities for Social Gerontology

    Individual Symposium Abstract First Author: Chris Phillipson, Ph.D (he/him/his) – University of Manchester

  • 12:00 PM – 1:30 PM PST
    Aging Assemblages: New Materialist Insights in the Sociology of Aging

    Individual Symposium Abstract First Author: Vera Gallistl, PhD (she/her/hers) – Karl Landsteiner University of Health Sciences