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Thomas Scharf Director, Irish Centre for Social Gerontology, NUI Galway

Rural ageing: a research challenge. Thomas Scharf Director, Irish Centre for Social Gerontology, NUI Galway Rural Ageing Seminar, Age NI Belfast, 30 May 2013. Environments of ageing. Space and place as major dimensions of research on ageing

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Thomas Scharf Director, Irish Centre for Social Gerontology, NUI Galway

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  1. Rural ageing: a research challenge Thomas Scharf Director, Irish Centre for Social Gerontology, NUI Galway Rural Ageing Seminar, Age NI Belfast, 30 May 2013

  2. Environments of ageing • Space and place as major dimensions of research on ageing • ‘Classic’ studies in gerontology focus on urban and rural contexts: • Urban: e.g. Sheldon (1948), Townsend (1957), Rowles (1978) • Rural: e.g. Rosenmayr (1982), Cribier (1973), Wenger (1984)

  3. Environments of ageing: key issues • Rural gerontology part of a shift towards an ‘environmental gerontology’ with a focus on: • Understanding the key tasks facing older adults in diverse physical and ecological settings; • Exploring the impacts of globalisation on older people’s environmental experiences; • Addressing the policy and practice impacts of demographic change at a spatial level

  4. Why focus on rural ageing? • Considerable social, economic and demographic change within rural areas; • Changing local infrastructures; • Challenges associated with providing public services in changing rural contexts; • Ongoing weaknesses in the research evidence base for rural areas.

  5. Key research challenges • Coping with ‘rurality’ • Lack of generalisability • Nation-specific understandings of ‘the rural’ • Impacts of varying approaches to exploring rural issues • Comparing urban and rural environments • ‘Delay’ and ‘level’ hypotheses (Tews, 1987) • Limited value of urban-rural comparisons

  6. Towards a more critical perspective • Social divisions approach, identifying rural older people as a ‘minority’ within primarily urban societies • Exploring difference within and between different rural contexts (e.g. gender, social class, ethnicity, spatial dimensions) • Extending the ‘rural gerontological imagination’ (e.g. social inclusion/exclusion; methods)

  7. Rural Ageing Observatory at NUI Galway • Research leading to improved quality of life for rural dwellers • Participation of older people and relevant stakeholders in the research process • Key focus on forms of exclusion and inclusion relating to older people in rural areas • Life-course perspective • Policy/practice influence in relation to rural ageing

  8. Rural Ageing Observatory at NUI Galway

  9. Contact details thomas.scharf@nuigalway.ie

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