Age Flashcards
What are the 4 main age groups+
-Childhood
-Youth
-Middle age
-Old age
Childhood- Socially constructed
-In some countries childhood can be not seen as a period of innocence like in the UK
-For example in some countries you could get married at the age of 13
-In the UK today we have a contradictory view of children, often portrayed as little angles and vulnerable victims or little devils and delinquent
Youth/Childhood-Family- Parsons
-Childhood is a period of socialisation into society’s culture
-children learn the norms and values associated with different social roles which enable them to contribute to society as adults
-2 main family function:
1. Primary socialisation
2. The stabilization of the adult personalities of the population of society
-Adolescence is a time when children begin to develop independent from their parents.
Youth-Media- Griffin
-Media portrays youth in a stereotyped way:
1. Dysfunctional
2. Suffering a deficit
3. Deviant
-Results in a socially constructed idea about what young people are like, which may not be true or may be stereotypical
-Creates a moral panic, so young people may then react to live down to this label
Youth-Peer groups- Sewell
-African Caribbean Boys display distinct youth subculture
-Hyper masculinity and members gain status by looking up to trying to imitate aspects of black role models which are often rap stars
-Peer group membership
Middle age-Family- Brannen
-Middle age identity reinforced thorough responsibilities and expectations
-Middle age is the time where people start carrying a lot of responsibilities, caring for their parents but also for their children = Dual burden and pivot generation
Middle age- Media- Saunders
-Study on consumption, they satisfy their needs through ownership of various goods
-Influenced easily by ads, media targets middle age as they are the group with the highest disposable income and they often define their identity by what they own
Middle age- Peer groups-Hodkinson
-Middle aged people can be part of subcultures, association to groups with specific norms and values
-Looks and style is important, but primarily its the sense of being part of something, sense of belonging
-Goths= commitment to the goth scene, friendship groups and identity that develops around being goth
Old age-Family-Parsons
-Elderly have less status in society, they lose their most important role within the family once their children grow up and men have retired
-They feel isolated from their children and start to disengage from society
-They disengage from their previous roles and harvest the fruits of their labour, enjoy recreational activities
-Age is socially constructed to be a period of disengagement and detachment so that society can function harmoniously
Old age-Media-Carringan and Szmigin’s
-Old people are represented little in the media more however older consumers have grown in number, meaning older consumers aren’t getting portrayed in advertisements, instead younger people are much more
-When they are depicted they are portrayed das smelly and incontinent
Old age-Peer groups- Clarke and Warren
-Old age is a time to make new friends and engage in new interests.
-Inclusion into such activities creates active ageing
-Active and engaged stage of life, pensioners identified old age as active and they had more time to take up activities
Postmodernist- Featherstone and Hepworth
-Trends such as living for longer, anti-aging products and procedures show how age is fluid and becoming less significant
-F&H argue that life course has begun to be deconstructed:
1.de-differentiation= differences between different stages of life course become less clear
2.Deinstitutionalism= process by which institutions in society become less closely associated with maintaining different phases of life course
