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Families in Later Life
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Families in Later Life
Connections and Transitions


January 2001 | 344 pages | SAGE Publications, Inc

"The introductory essays and readings, drawn from both literature and social science research, vividly illustrate the diversity of aging experiences both within and across American families – diversity conditioned by social space, historical time, and individual biography."

—Eleanor Palo Stoller,

Selah Chamberlain Professor of Sociology

Case Western Reserve University

Families in Later Life is the only textbook on the subject that addresses the diversity of aging experiences in society by race, gender, and social class, and in a form which combines insight from the humanities as well as the social sciences.

Includes a balance between empirical selections and literary pieces, keeping students interested and engaged while still introducing them to solid research. Every social science article included has been carefully edited so those students learn and enjoy their reading to the maximum extent possible. Framing Essays by the Editors, Questions for Discussion, and a complete Index make this book even more useful for teaching.


 
Introduction
 
1. The Gathering
 
PART I. NEGOTIATING TIES WITH YOUNG ADULTS
 
2. Four Models of Adolescent Mother-Grandmother Relationships in Black Inner-City Families
 
3. One Week Until College
 
4. The Good Daughter
 
5. Forgotten Streams in the Family Life Course: Utilization of Qualitative Retrospective Interviews in the Analysis of Lifelong Single Women's Family Careers
 
6. Social Demography of Contemporary Families and Aging
 
7. The Last Diamond of Summer
 
8. Intergenerational Solidarity and the Structure of Adult Child-Parent Relationships in American Families
 
PART II. CONNECTIONS ACROSS THE GENERATIONS IN MIDLIFE
 
9. Dancing with Death
 
10. Historical Perspectives on Caregiving: Documenting Women's Experiences
 
11. Only Daughter
 
12. The Experience of Grandfatherhood
 
13. Father's Sorrow, Father's Joy
 
14. Last Christmas Gift From a Mother
 
15. Extended Kin Networks in Black Families
 
16. Looking After: A Son's Memoir
 
PART III. THE CENTRALITY OF INTIMACY IN LATER MIDLIFE
 
17. Marriage and Family Life of Blues-Collar Men
 
18. Breathing Lessons
 
19. Grandparenting Styles: Native American Perspectives
 
20. Silent Dancing: A Partial Remembrance of a Puerto Rican Childhood
 
21. Closeness, Confiding, and Contact Among Siblings in Middle and Late Adulthood
 
22. Shared Filial Responsibility: The Family as the Primary Caregiver
 
23. What Remains
 
24. Marriage as Support or Strain? Marital Quality Following the Death of a Parent
 
PART IV. TRANSITIONS AT WORK AND AT HOME IN EARLY OLD AGE
 
25. Retirement and Marital Satisfaction
 
26. U.S. Old-Age Policy and the Family
 
27. Elderly Mexican American Men: Work and Family Patterns
 
28. Family Ties and Motherly Love
 
29. Predictor and Outcomes of the End of Co-Resident Caregiving in Aging Families of Adults with Mental Retardation or Mental Illness
 
30. Gender and Control Among Spouses of the Cognitively Impaired: A Research Note
 
31. Two-Part Invention: The Story of a Marriage
 
32. Happiness in Cornwall
 
PART V. CHALLENGES AND POSSIBILITIES IN LATER LIFE
 
33. Final Rounds: A Father, a Son, the Golf Journey of a Lifetime
 
34. Manon Reassures Her Lover
 
35. Starboys
 
36. Divorced and Reconstituted Families: Effects on the Older Generation
 
37. Understanding Elder Abuse and Neglect
 
38. Obasan in Suburbia
 
39. Selectivity Theory: Social Activity in Life-Span Context
 
40. Wallace Nelson, 85, and Juanita Nelson, 70: Deerfield, Massachusetts
 
41. Letters From a Father

"The introductory essays and readings, drawn from both literature and social science research, vividly illustrate the diversity of aging experiences both within and across American families – diversity conditioned by social space, historical time, and individual biography." 

ELEANOR PALO STOLLER
Selah Chamberlain Professor of Sociology, Case Western Reserve University

Sample Materials & Chapters

Front Matter

Chapter 1


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