Who theorizes age? The “socio-demographic variables” device and age–period–cohort analysis in the rhetoric of survey research

Abstract

In this paper we argue that quantitative survey-based social research essentializes age, through specific rhetorical tools. We outline the device of 'socio-demographic variables' and we discuss its argumentative functions, looking at scientific survey-based analyses of adult scientific literacy, in the Public Understanding of Science research field. 'Socio-demographics' are virtually omnipresent in survey literature: they are, as a rule, used and discussed as bundles of independent variables, requiring little, if any, theoretical and measurement attention. 'Socio-demographics' are rhetorically effective through their common-sense richness of meaning and inferential power. We identify their main argumentation functions as 'structure building', 'pacification', and 'purification'. Socio-demographics are used to uphold causal vocabularies, supporting the transmutation of the descriptive statistical jargon of 'effects' and 'explained variance' into 'explanatory factors'. Age can also be studied statistically as a main variable of interest, through the Age-Period-Cohort (APC) disambiguation technique. While this approach has generated interesting findings, it did not mitigate the reductionism that appears when treating age as a socio-demographic variable. By working with age as a 'socio-demographic variable', quantitative researchers convert it (inadvertently) into a quasi-biological feature, symmetrical, as regards analytical treatment, with pathogens in epidemiological research.

A critical review of research relating to the learning, use and effects of additional and multiple languages in later life

“…However, many linguists continue to approach the speech of older individuals as a static repository of vestiges from earlier stages of the language, or as a reflection of physical and cognitive decline. There is a serious lack of attention to understanding the social process of ageing as opposed to the common-sense depiction of ageing as decay and forgetfulness (Rughiniș & Humă, 2015). Such decline narratives cannot be found in other realms where similar phenomena occur.…”

“…One of the challenges in this line of research is the prevalent 'deficit view' inadvertently included in the representation of research findings: evaluating older language learners against 'young learner' competence, i.e. setting the criterion for 'success' in L2 as the level of proficiency associated with young adults; participating in a rhetoric of age as an internal causal factor, thereby de-socialising age (Rughiniș & Humă, 2015); estimating ageing effects in the aggregate, i.e. grouping third-agers into cohorts according to their age, thus dismissing people's agency in shaping their lives, and the role of social variation and change (Rughiniș & Humă, 2015); using patronising teaching materials (e.g.…”

“…From a quantitative perspective, an important question concerns the methodologies needed to study complex dynamic SOCIAL systems. By working with age as a 'socio-demographic variable', quantitative researchers often convert it (inadvertently) into an exclusively quasi-biological feature (see Rughiniș & Humă, 2015), which does not do justice to the socio-affective and contextual nature of the age factor. Accordingly, statistical methods are necessary which are able adequately to analyse change and account for variability and auto-correlation in linear as well as non-linear patterns (i.e.…”

“…In other words, although everyone experiences ageing in his/her unique way, people are always ‘aged by culture’ in the sense that cultural ageing discourses delimit experiences (Isopahkala-Bouret, 2015). Treating age as a numerical attribute of the person ignores considerations concerning the social utilization of age as a categorisation and identification device (Rughiniș & Humă, 2015). Finally, the length of the third age is difficult to ‘set in stone’, as social, medical and scientific advances make possible an ever-increasing number of third-age years (Oxford, 2018).…”

“…setting the criterion for ‘success’ in L2 as the level of proficiency associated with young adults; participating in a rhetoric of age as an internal causal factor, thereby de-socialising age (Rughiniș & Humă, 2015); estimating ageing effects in the aggregate, i.e. grouping third-agers into cohorts according to their age, thus dismissing people's agency in shaping their lives, and the role of social variation and change (Rughiniș & Humă, 2015); using patronising teaching materials (e.g. explicitly labelled ‘adult learner’ course books); using tasks for the comparison of age groups that compare performance between groups whose experience varies; speaking about the third-age learner as a failure for being unlike the younger learner and about lifelong learning ‘as a practice to battle against old age’ (Isopahkala-Bouret, 2015, p. 2); and finally, anticipating, through the statistical parlance about ‘age effects’, matter-of-factly representing them as underlying deficient behaviour (Rughiniș & Humă, 2015).…”