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Linking the Two Ends of Life: What Gerontology Can Learn From Childhood Studies

Department of Sociology, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Richard Settersten at the Department of Sociology, Case Western Reserve University, 10900 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio, 44106-7124. E-mail: richard.settersten{at}case.edu

This paper extends provocative ideas from the emerging interdisciplinary field of childhood studies to the field of gerontology. These ideas constitute a framework for building new kinds of theories and research on old people and old age—gathered around rights and responsibilities of and for old people; focused on their agency and social participation; concerned with the social problems of old people, as well as how old people are constructed to be social problems; anchored in their perspectives and voices; dedicated to describing and explaining both commonness and difference in their experiences and statuses; devoted to understanding old people as beings and becomings; and attentive to the interdependence of generations within families and societies. These commitments will require gerontology to strengthen its treatment of sociocultural phenomena, prompt more genuinely interdisciplinary scholarship, and advocate a wider range of research methods and data. A "new social studies of old people and old age," nurtured around these ideas, will also raise the visibility of old people and old age in science, public policy, and social life.

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