Dowry Inflation: Perception or Reality?

Population Research and Policy Review - Research on South Asia has consistently documented increasing dowry amounts over the past several decades. Although recent studies have largely concluded...     

阿尔茨海默症患者认同维持的叙事研究

利用在自然氛围下的谈话去理解阿尔茨海默症患者的自我意识和认同的产生、维系和保持.认为如果有人和阿尔茨海默症患者进行互动和交流.他们能持续表达他们的自我意识,维持他们的自我认同.运用生命历程模式.人们看到个人生命的主旋律主要取决于目前的选择和模式.这些选择和模式源于同时也基于更早的选择和经历.     

Older rural women as recipients and providers of social support

The literature on serving the rural elderly has focused on rural elders primarily as passive recipients of care. This article views rural older women as active manipulators of the social support system within which they meet their perceived needs and the needs of others in their social network. It is based on the findings of a multi-phase qualitative study of 30 older women in central Minnesota. Data were collected through life history interviews, in-depth structured interviews, observation and network analysis profiles. The informants relationships with family, friends, neighbors and formal service providers are discussed. Implications for formal service delivery to rural elders are explored.     

The evolution of the system of care for the aged in Denmark

In Denmark, formal services are viewed as a right to be used by any member of that society who is in need of assistance, premised upon a societal model of mutual self-help. The focus here is on the dual themes of philosophical consistency and of transition in the formal system of services and delivery of care in Denmark. Denmark's system centers on meeting the basic needs of the elderly while enabling individuals to retain control over decisions regarding their own lives. It was effective during the economically expansive period of the 1960s and 1970s, but became less effective during the 1980s. Because of the economic necessity of cutting back on budgets, the national government has in fact attempted to define and redirect available choices in service delivery. The dual themes of consistency and dynamism are demonstrated through the case of a rural municipality in northwest Jutland during the prosperous period into the more economically limited period of the last decade and the present. Implications for informal social support and relationships between the aged and their families, friends, and neighbors in Denmark are explored.     

Narratives and self-identity in later life: Two rural American older women

Older adults often draw on memories to construct stories about themselves that help them to retain and validate their self-identities, doing this within the cultural contexts that have shaped their lives. In this paper, we examine the life history narratives of two working class, rural American older women and the ways in which those narratives are similar despite one major difference: one has dementia. In both cases, major themes that are consistent with gender-based, working class, rural American cultural values are dominant, including closeness of family, hard work, ties to the land, and religious faith. In the first case, she reconstructs memories of her life in accordance with dominant cultural and personal values, downplaying the ways in which her experiences were “out of step” with these values. In the second case, her sense of identity remains and is expressed through her co-constructed memories although she is experiencing cognitive loss.     

Negating identity: a feminist analysis of the social invisibility of older lesbians

Older lesbians are invisible both within and outside of the lesbian community. Using a postmodern and lesbian feminist approach, in this article we identify a paradox in our society which defines lesbians in terms of their sexuality while older women are generally viewed as asexual. We suggest that this paradox contributes to the invisibility of older lesbians. Our focus is on the interactive nature of the relationship between personal and public constructions of lesbianism in the lives of older women. Finally, we discuss the potential impact of invisibility on self-identity, and using a feminist gerontological framework suggest implications for the empowerment of older lesbians.     

‘I'm Mexican,remember?’ Constructing ethnic identities via authenticating discourse1

This paper examines how an ideology of cultural authenticity emerges in the casual but playful conversations of a bilingual Mexican American friendship group. Authenticating discourse, as illustrated here, is part of an ongoing, ordinary interactional routine through which speakers take overt (authentication) stances, which I call authenticating moves, to display, impugn, vie for, and enact forms of ethnic identity. In the data, issues of authenticity in relation to Mexicanness emerge as a result of the interactional exploitation of three ideological constructs: purity of bloodline, purity of nationality, and Spanish linguistic fluency.