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Age Identity/ Inequalities - Coggle Diagram
Age Identity/ Inequalities
Bradley
: 5 Age Stages
Childhood, Teenager, Young adult, Middle age, Elderly
Operationalisation = to define a concept and make it measurable (turn something that is qualitative into something quantitative)
Age is a problematic concept because it is difficult to define
Age inequalities are socially constructed
they are culturally relative in line with a society’s historical, legal, ideological, political, structural frameworks which differ globally.
Aries
: 'A Century of Childhood'
Age is socially constructed
Childhood = new invention
Pre-industrial revolution: children - compulsory schooling, 1870 Forster Act - extended families - agricultural work
Children were "economic assets"
Children are economic burdens
Infant mortality rate
Extended families
High birth rate
"Childcentred society" - Welfare, wellbeing = cherished, protected
Lower birth rate today (1.7 children per household)
Today, we have contraceptives so can choose when to have children
Children no longer work, have better education, are more protected and seem more innocent
Factory system
Urbaninsation
Geographical mobility
Creation of the nuclear family
Specialised division of labour - impact on childhood as treated like 'little adults.'
Postman
Disappearance of childhood: digital revolution - impact on childhood, grow up faster/ loss of innocence
Laws and legislation evolved to protect children
Children's Acts - Safeguarding
Hockey & James
: Growing up and growing old
Elderly in the UK are not accorded a great deal of respect or status because work is the major source of status in industrial societies.
'Infantilism' = how the elderly are treated in the UK
Gerontocracy = a society that values the elderly
Featherstone and Hepworth
Negative media images of ageing are giving away new identities and as the population ages, more positive images may emerge
'Infantilism' = how the elderly are treated in the UK
Postmodernism - age deconstructed fluid
Turner
(Neo-Weberianist) Maturation - Reciprocity Theory. Bourdieu: greatest social capital at middle years
Elderly have learned helplessness. They become dependant as people give them everything and care for them - take away their independance
Elderly are not valuable for capitalism - they are not as useful in the workplace
Cohen
: folk devils
Newspapers exaggerated the behaviour of youth in order to create stories
Youth demonised, leads to moral panic
Youth become 'folk devils' (portrayed as deviant) and are seen as a social problem
Bourdieu (neo-marxist) - social capital
Abrams
: Young people are all part of the same youth culture; at the same transitional stage of their life
Clarke
: Youth is based around rebellion and resistance (of norms and values)/ rebelling against their low position in society
Polemus
[Postmodernism]: Youth culture is a time for experimenting with new styles and fashions
Shopping in the 'Supermarket of style'
Young people can 'pick and mix' their customs and identity in an 'anything goes' culture
Willis
: Youth simply a time for growing up. Most youths do not engage in or identify with criminal behaviour/ deviant subcultural behaviour. They are "ordinary"
Jones and Wallace
Young adulthood: Markers to signify the beginning of adulthood
'Private markers' e.g. significant sexual encounters
'Public markers' e.g. the right to vote
Bradley
Middle age: Middle age brings with it a higher status than youth or old age