Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-dh8gc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-11T12:30:06.775Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

In defiance of an ageing culture

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 1999

MIKE HEPWORTH
MIKE HEPWORTH
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology, University of Aberdeen
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Margaret Morganroth Gullette, Declining to Decline: Cultural Combat and the Politics of the Midlife. Charlottesville and London: University Press of Virginia 1997, 276pp, $29.95 cloth ISBN 0-8139-1721-2.

Margaret Morganroth Gullette is one of America's foremost critics of the concept of ageing as a universal and comprehensive process of decline which begins in the middle years. She is a formidable critic of biological essentialism, defender of social constructionism, and opponent of ‘middle ageism’. Her most recent book, published in 1997 and not yet available in the UK, has been widely acclaimed in the USA. This review article describes Gullette's analysis of the social construction of decline in the context of her previous writings on midlife and outlines her strategy for combatting the decline model of ageing into old age.

Keywords

Ageing studiessocial constructionentrancemidlifemidlife crisismiddle ageismdeclinepositive ageingpostmodern selves
Type
Review Article
Information
Ageing & Society , Volume 19 , Issue 1 , January 1999 , pp. 139 - 148
Copyright
© 1999 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)