The goal of AGE AND CULTURE is to discover the influences of community context the well-being of old people. This application is for a continuation of the research carried out in Momence, IL, Swarthmore, PA, and Hong Kong. The research proposed extends the research to two communities in Ireland, one community in the highlands of New Guinea, and two communities in Botswana, the Herero pastoralists and the Kung Bushman. A comparative design contrasts communities in terms of the social system variables of scale, rate of change, economic expansion, stratification, residential stability, role differentiation and role discontinuity. These characteristics are hypothesized to shape factors that more directly influence the well-being of old people: clarity of age grades, awareness of interdependence, age structure of social networks (homogeneity vs. heterogeneity), age norm ambiguity perceptions of the life course, and functionality. An """"""""ethnography of age"""""""" will be produced in each community. These anthropological community studies focused on age will chart perceptions, norms and actions about age in the context of the entire life course as well as of the total community. An Age Game """"""""persona"""""""" sort elicits perceptions of the life course and its internal structure, as well as norms associated with age categories. Participant observation provides information about the dynamics of age in groups, associations and public spaces. Life histories of older community residents also reveal subjective views of the life course. Well-being is measured by self-ranking in terms of individually and culturally meaningful definitions. Data will be analyzed both within each community and across communities to identify universal vs. culturally-shaped paths to well-being in old age.
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