Suchergebnisse

The question of communication and understanding between different generations is emerging as a key issue for the twenty-first century. The advent of ageing populations may lead to increased conflict or solidarity in society, and provokes a profound ambivalence both in public and in the private sphere. In a new approach, Biggs and Lowenstein offer a critical examination of Generational Intelligence as one way of addressing these issues. How easy is it to put yourself in the shoes of someone of a different age group? What are the personal, interpersonal and social factors that affect our percept

The study illuminates the unique cultural context for caregiving in a society in transition—the rural Arab community in Israel. The 10 families in the study were forced to adapt to a stressful situation—the chronic illness of an elderly homebound parent. The advent of the illness, family resources, modes of reactions, and family adaptation were explored through semi-structured interviews of four members of each family: the ill elder, his or her spouse (the primary caregiver), and two secondary caregivers, usually a son and daughter-in-law. These data indicate that household arrangements, type of community, and perceived support were the main resources. Perceptions of the illness, patterns of decision-making, modes of interaction and caregiver adaptation were the main themes that emerged. Four styles of family interaction were identified: "unilateral decision," "Rashomon," "working machine," and "roundtable."

This research paper from Israel examines damaging family reactions to later‐life remarriage. It describes a study based on qualitative data from interviews with 17 children of elderly parents who had remarried and later reported their adult children to the social service agencies as abusers. An analysis of the interviews shows that the main cause of the abuse was financial and involved matters of inheritance, wills and the distribution of assets. The dynamics which lay behind this pattern of family behaviour are explored.