Despite obstacles, many rural-dwelling older adults report that positive aspects of rural residence, such as attachment to community, social participation, and familiarity, create a sense of belonging that far outweighs the negative. By being part of a community where they are known and they know people, rural elders continue to find meaning, the key to achieving successful aging in this last stage of life. This scoping review explored factors influencing social participation and, through it, successful aging among rural-dwelling older adults. We sought to answer the question: what factors enhance or detract from the ability of rural-dwelling older adults to engage in social participation in rural communities? The scoping review resulted in 19 articles that highlight the importance of supports to enable older people to spend time with others, including their pets, engage in volunteer and community activities, and help maintain their home and care for their pets. Overall, the lack of services, including local health care facilities, was less important than the attachment to place and social capital associated with aging in place.

Abstract:The objective of this study was to examine the role of social determinants of health: gender, income, education, housing, and social connections in successful aging in older adults aging with illness. Participants were 50 adults aged 65-90 years, all aging in place in their own home, and reporting at least one illness. This pilot study used non-probability sampling and employed both online and in-person interviews. The majority (82%) were aging "successfully" or "somewhat successfully" as reported on the single item successful aging scale and demonstrated by their scores on the Successful Aging Inventory (SAI). Correlations were not significant between SAI and gender, income, education, or housing. A significant negative correlation was found between SAI and community activity. However, there were significant positive correlations between SAI and religious activity and relationships. The regression model was a linear combination of participants' community and religious activity and relationships. The majority of older adults aging with illness consider themselves to be aging successfully, but their scores are influenced by relationships with others as well as religious and community activity. Frequent community activity had a suppressor effect on successful aging.

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This paper sketches out a framework for the comparative analysis of physical exercise policy within the context of the development of the welfare state. The term "physical exercise policy" is used here to refer to specific policies pertaining to the body which were geared towards the fostering of "physical fitness" and specific sport practices. The first section presents general considerations for comparative analysis. Section two discusses a "Society-State" framework. The concluding section presents directions for further studies. Historical examples are used to illustrate major points in the proposed framework.Recent studies (see for example Harvey 1988; Wilson 1988; Macintosh and Whitson 1990) have demonstrated the influence that the development of the welfare state has had on the transformation of physical exercise policy.2 These studies mostly focussed on single countries. Until now, there has not been a well theorized, comparative study of physical exercise policy within the context of the welfare state. The purpose of this paper is to sketch out a framework for such an analysis.In the first section, general considerations for the comparative analysis of physical exercise policy under the auspicious of the welfare state are presented. Section two discusses a proposed framework for such an analysis. The concluding section presents directions for further study. The paper presents a number of historical examples of physical exercise policy, drawn from ongoing research comparing Canada, England, France and Germany, to illustrate the major points of the proposed framework.Int Rev for Soc of Sport 28/1 (1993) ©

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In his 1970 Proposed Sports Policy for Canadians, John Munro noted that many Canadians faced significant barriers to sport participation. His Proposed Sport Policy was designed, in part, to overcome some of those barriers and create greater equality of opportunity for all Canadians as they strived to become the best athletes in the nation and the world. Gruneau's study of 1971 Winter Games athletes indicated the extent to which socio economic status (SES) influenced participation in the upper levels of Canada's sport system in the Olympic sports. This paper presents data gathered from a 1986-7 survey of Canadian national team athletes and all athletes who were part of the Athletes' Assistance Program in 1986 to examine the extent to which Munro's Proposed Sports Policy has created a sport system based on athletic ability rather than SES. The data suggest that despite a number of federal government programmes which the Proposed Sports Policy initiated, SES is still a major factor in determining which Canadians become the nations' top, high performance athletes. The data in this study clearly indicate that athletes from Canada's national team are significantly overrepresented among the upper SES groups and significantly underrepresented among the lower SES groups, no matter what indicators of SES are used. 2 In this presentation, I am only concerned with the relationship between socio-economic status and participation in sport at the elite level within Canada. The unequal patterns of participation that I will indicate below are also found in other western countries. For information on sport and inequality outside of Canada, see Berryman and Loy (1976), Collins (1972), Crawford (1977), Eggleston (1965), Loy (1972), Pavia (1973), and Shine (1977). For general discussions of sport and inequality related to athletes, see Gruneau (1975), Heinemann (1980), Kneyer (1980), Lüschen (1981), or Loy, Kenyon and McPherson (1978, 332-81). 3 In the McPherson (1977, 172) study, 60 percent of the players had fathers from the lower two Blishen categories while Gruneau's (1976, 121) had 39 percent. This difference, I would argue, reflects the fact that McPherson was surveying players in a professional career. Many of Gruneau's middle Blishen level hockey players would soon opt for a more secure career outside of hockey leaving only those who could afford the risks — upper SES players — and those who have little to lose — lower SES players — working their way to the professional ranks. Of course, the professional ranks will have far more players from the lower SES groups than from the upper SES groups of Canadian society. 4 See Beamish (1985) for a discussion of how movement towards the national level in instrumental voluntary associations in sport relates directly to an increased exclusivity based on SES. 5 For details about the Blishen Scale see Blishen (1967), or Blishen and McRoberts (1976). One should also note that I have not used Blishen's (Blishen, Carroll, and Moore, 1987) update to his SES scale because in constructing his new scale, Blishen dropped out the Pineo/Porter-based prestige score component of the overall Blishen score. To make comparisons with Gruneau's data, I felt it was preferable at this time to use Blishen scores that still contained the prestige score component. In addition, in view of Blishen's revisions, one is now just as far ahead to report occupation and education directly rather than report Blishen scores that combine the two. I have, of course, already presented those data immediately above this section of the paper.

Since the overwhelming majority of sport opportunity in Canada is enjoyed, organized, and administered by voluntary associations, it is surprising that so little research has been done in this area. This paper reviews the voluntary association literature in general and the sport voluntary association literature in particular. Broadly stated, the general literature shows that voluntary association membership reflects the normative order and no matter what indicator of socioeconomic status is used, there is a direct relationship between SES and participation in voluntary associations. The same, in an accentuated form, is found in sport associations. Furthermore, instrumental associations, both as a whole and in sport, are more dominated by upper SES personnel than are expressive associations. Concerning gender relations, the review shows that the exclusion of women from so many spheres of social life is found with equal severity in the voluntary association literature as a whole and in the sport literature in particular. The final section of the paper examines how power and the control over rules and resources can be used to explain the existing patterns of voluntary association in Canadian sport.