Rural and urban perspectives on growing old: developing a new research agenda

Phillipson, Christopher; Scharf, Thomas

doi:10.1007/s10433-005-0024-7

Cited by 52 publications

(47 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…This would be of general importance, given the strong tendency in gerontology to opt 'only' for a person-centred approach and thereby de-contextualise the ageing process. The potential of person-environment issues in ageing research driven by the urban-rural distinction beyond the empirical data presented here is also convincingly represented in Phillipson and Scharf's (2005) conceptual paper. Moreover, urban-rural research in gerontology has the potential to provide a firm foundation for the ongoing development of interdisciplinarity in gerontology.…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 56%

“…The more general point inherent in the paper is that cities as 'engines of innovation'-as engines of population, attitude, and value diversity and as engines driving physical, spatial and mental mobility-may lead to severe person-environment mismatches when it comes to ageing well in such contextual dynamics. This is also a key point highlighted by Phillipson and Scharf (2005) in their conceptual paper. With a certain degree of overstatement, one might even argue that an environment planned to remain in ongoing and rather rapid change as part of its deepest postmodern or post-post-modern identity simultaneously represents a major threat to the need for continuity, the maintenance of physical, spatial and mental meaning, and long-term place attachment prevalent predominantly in old and very old people.…”

Section: A Closer Look At the Papersmentioning

confidence: 81%

“…In any case, the urban-rural distinction also seems to provide a helpful device to frame questions related to fundamental processes concerning post-and post-post-modernity processes, globalisation, and how this affects ageing. This family of critical issues is addressed in depth in Phillipson and Scharf's (2005) conceptual contribution to the special section.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The paper by Deeg and Thome´se (2005) explores the role of discrepancies between income level and neighbourhood status for ageing outcomes and also relates person-environment discrepancy constellations to urban and rural regions in The Netherlands. Finally, Phillipson and Scharf (2005) provide an overarching conceptual argument which touches upon many of the key issues and developments in the field, not least globalisation and how this affects urban and rural ageing today and in the future.A second major reason underlying the reluctance of contemporary gerontology to adopt the urban-rural distinction as a frame for conducting research concerns the cross-cutting nature of related research. The urbanrural divide may be perceived as being too broad an umbrella for investigating concrete empirical research…”

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confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

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Ageing research along the urban–rural distinction: old questions and new potential

Wahl

2005

Eur J Ageing

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Challenges of ageing research along the urban-rural distinctionResearch relating to the urban-rural distinction, frequently framed as a direct contrast between urban and rural regions, has yet to become a major pathway in gerontology and continues to be subject to considerable debate in relation to its status and outcomes. This can be attributed to several factors.First, the urban-rural contrast approach is associated with numerous research design and methodology flaws (Golant 2004). This encompasses ongoing difficulties and incompatibilities arising from the definition of 'urban' and 'rural' areas-a situation which applies to research conducted within a single nation, but is compounded when cross-national comparisons are attempted. Further problems arise from an ongoing neglect to control for confounding variables, such as education and income, when seeking to identify 'true' and robust urban-rural differences. Going further still, the heterogeneity within urban and rural settings often appears to be so pronounced, even within individual nations, that a simplistic urban-rural contrast is unlikely to represent a very useful endeavour. Related to this, urban and rural settings represent moving targets. On the one hand, rural regions in many nations have changed dramatically-either to the better or to the worse-since the 1980s in relation to their economic and infrastructural development. On the other hand, longterm and ongoing changes in urban areas, including trends towards suburbanisation, the concentration and dominance of business areas and a diversity of city centres, have significantly affected the lives of older people in urban areas. Consequently, research on urban-rural issues and ageing dating from the 1970s and 1980s is probably no longer very helpful, and there is an urgent need to update the knowledge base in this field.In the light of these considerations, it would appear that simple urban-rural contrasts relating to older people no longer provide convincing answers to the challenges in the field of gerontology. Instead, a more differentiated approach is demanded which focuses on specific urban or rural areas. This approach should be driven by important conceptual and societal questions, and by a desire to investigate-to draw upon a distinction suggested by Rowles and Watkins (2003)-the importance of spaces (in objective terms) and places (as the subjective, cognitive-emotional representation of objective space) as people age. This is the bottom line which can be identified in the collection of six papers echoing recent European research on urban and rural issues, brought together by Thomas Scharf as a special section of this issue of the European Journal of Ageing (EJA). I believe that this represents a major strength of the collection. Specifically, the papers by Scharf et al. (2005) and Oswald et al. (2005) provide differentiated views on ageing in specific urban settings in England and Germany, while the contributions of Burholt and Naylor (2005) and Mollenkopf and Kaspar (2005) develop in-depth...

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Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 56%

Section: A Closer Look At the Papersmentioning

confidence: 81%

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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