Simon Bigg
Datos Biográficos
| ID | 3580807 |
|---|---|
| NOMBRE | Simon Bigg |
| NOMBRES | Simon |
| APELLIDO | Bigg |
| FIRMA | BIGG S |
| AFILIACIONES | The University of Melbourne |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-2808-8134 |
| VERIFICADO | Sí |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 44 |
| TOTAL DE CITAS | 381 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 44 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMER AÑO DE PUBLICACIÓN | 1987 |
| AÑO MÁS RECIENTE DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 11 |
From the margins to the centre
For decades, Australia’s education system has failed Indigenous students. This paper contends that nearly 40 years of policy initiatives have targeted the wrong problem. The core issue is not the absence of Indigenous content or cultural awareness, but an inherited educational architecture structurally incapable of serving diverse learners. We propose leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) explicitly aligned with the cultural interface—the dynam…
Intergenerational Commensality
Connecting intergenerational relationships and commensality has been a neglected area in research and conceptual development within both food and life-course studies. This has been especially true of relations beyond the family. Here, public and private settings are explored in order to examine the relationship between eating together and generationally intelligent empathy. This is to help the discovery of spaces where different generations can i…
What would I want? Dementia perspectives and priorities among people with dementia, family carers and service professionals
Different perspectives on dementia, held by people with dementia, carers and professionals working in helping service industries, were examined in 111 interviews across Australia in 2017 to add a recipients’ view on what public health campaigning should address. Contrasts were found between the priorities of the different perspectives, plus a common feeling that dementia should become a normal part of social life. Rather than reflecting stigmatis…
Perspective-Taking Interventions for Intergenerational Caregivers of Alzheimer’s Diseases
Purpose: The present study examined the effects of perspective-taking (PT) intervention in the context of intergenerational caregiving. Method: Seventy-two adult child caregivers of persons living with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) were randomized into two 8-week interventions: (1) connecting through caregiving (CTC: 37 participants) with intergenerational PT reappraisals and (2) basic skill building (BSB: 35 participants). The CTC intervention focuse…
Work, health and the commodification of life's time
How to respond to an ageing society has become an increasingly important question, for employers, workers and policy makers. Here we critically engage with that debate, arguing that future approaches to the relationship between work and age should take into account multiple influences on older worker behaviour, including the combination of economic, lifecourse and personal priorities. We consider the international consensus that has emerged about…
Rusty, invisible and threatening
Levels of mature-age unemployment and under-employment are increasing in Australia, with older jobseekers spending longer unemployed than younger jobseekers. This article focuses on two key explanations of the difficulties confronting older jobseekers: human capital theory, which focuses on the obsolescence of older workers' job skills, and ageism in employment. Drawing upon narrative interviews with older Australians, it critically engages with …
Activation and Active Ageing? Mature-Age Jobseekers' Experience of Employment Services
The number of mature-age Australians registered with employment services is growing, with mature-age jobseekers spending longer unemployed and on income support than younger jobseekers. However, the role of employment services in extending working lives has so far received little attention in policy discourses on ageing and employment. This article examines the effectiveness of Australia's employment services system in supporting mature-age jobse…
The Netherworld between Work and Retirement
A major theme within social gerontology is how retirement ‘is being re-organised, if not undone’. Institutional supports for retirement are weakening, with pension ages rising in many countries. Increasing numbers of older workers are working past traditional retirement age on a part-time or self-employed basis, and a growing minority are joining the ranks of the long-term unemployed. Drawing upon narrative interviews with older Australians who a…
Some Useful Sources
Issues related to population ageing and longer working lives span diverse research areas and are linked to a number of conceptual and policy debates. Here we provide details of texts which allow quick access to key debates in the different domains covered by the contributions. We focus first on social policy, retirement and pensions. We then provide key sources on the changing experiences and perceptions of retirement; age-discrimination, human r…
Introduction
Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, the relationship between work and ageing has become increasingly visible as a policy issue. It is both reflected in and influenced by changes in macro-economic policy, life-opportunities and social attitudes associated with growing older, as a combination of falling birth rates and increased longevity, and has put pressure on the traditional parameters of the working age. The idea of retiring at a …
Age Encounters
Age Encounters was a video documentary project wherein 10 younger people and 10 older people were asked questions about age; ageism; and their perception of the other generation, including challenges the other group might face and whether they could identify possibilities for solidarity between the two generations. It was found that most intergenerational relationships are respectful and occur within the family. Any lack of generational understan…
The Promise of a Long Life? Cultural Adaptation to Productive Aging, Spiritual Empathy, and a Sustainable Future
Population aging presents a challenge which is both a demographic shift and a task of cultural adaptation. The dominant form of adaptation, productivity through work, provides limited opportunities for personal development and for age-specific identities to take shape in later life. Alternatives are suggested which emphasize the creative value of inactivity, a re-thinking of social ageism, and increased generational intelligence, allowing age-spe…
Adult Ageing and Social Policy
This article considers changing perceptions of adult ageing and their interpretation in social policy. Once wider international trends are outlined, Australian policy is used as a case example. It is argued that a mismatch between policy initiatives and personal change is a new social risk associated with demographic and socio-cultural development, having implications for the way in which social ageism and age discrimination should be considered.…
Some Useful Sources
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Defining the “perpetrator”
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to set out and discuss findings from a developmental study, commissioned by the English Department of Health and the charity, Comic Relief, which was commissioned to clarify definitional issues and recommend ways of operationalising key concepts for a prospective survey of abuse, neglect and loss of dignity in the care of older people in residential care in the United Kingdom (UK). Design/methodology/approach …
Baby boomers, consumption and social change
This paper outlines the ways in which the cohort born immediately following the Second World War illustrates changes in consumption patterns within their lives. The paper suggests that this cohort (often known as baby boomers) view themselves to be a ‘bridging’ generation between the ‘old’ ways of their own parents and the radically different views of the next generation. Now nearing or entering retirement and later life, the discussion considers…
Spiritual perspectives of Black Caribbean and White British older adults
Spirituality is positively linked to health and well-being in later life, particularly among older adults of black ethnic groups. However, definitions of spirituality in the literature have largely been theoretically informed, rather than based on the views of older people themselves. We examined the spiritual perspectives of Black Caribbean and White British older adults based on in-depth interviews with 34 individuals aged between 60 and 95 yea…
International and European policy on work and retirement
In this article, the authors critically examine themes that have become associated with work and retirement in the context of demographic change. Two discourses are looked at in detail, those of ‘active’ and ‘productive’ ageing, with a focus upon International and European social policy. Drawing on the work of Foucault and others, the emergence of a dominant discourse and its effects on policy-based understandings of ageing are examined. A new or…
Interactional perspectives on the mistreatment of older and vulnerable people in long-term care settings
This article draws on a study aimed at developing theoretical and methodological understanding of the abuse and neglect (mistreatment) of older people in long-term care settings such as care homes and hospitals. It presents an interactionist account of mistreatment of older people in such establishments. Starting with an outline of definitional issues surrounding the topic, the allied concept of dignity is also briefly explored, and one important…
Rethinking theoretical and methodological issues in intergenerational family relations research
This paper introduces some key theoretical and methodological developments in the study of intergenerational family relations. It draws on observations that a number of social issues are emerging that have an intergenerational dimension, that there is growing recognition that to study adult ageing one has also to study intergenerational relationships, and that a new architecture for social relations is beginning to take shape in the wake of demog…
Exploring generational intelligence as a model for examining the process of intergenerational relationships
The purpose of this article is to examine an emerging model of intergenerational relationships that takes as its starting point the degree to which it is possible to place oneself in the position of a person of another age, the ‘age-other’. The paper explores an experiential approach that draws on both sociological thinking on ‘generational consciousness’ and a debate in family gerontology on the relationships between conflict, solidarity and amb…
Weight loss by mobile phone
Objective To investigate the short- and long-term effectiveness and the predictors of weight loss in a mobile phone weight-loss programme among healthy overweight adults. Design One hundred and twenty-five healthy, overweight (BMI = 26–36 kg/m 2 ), 25–44-year-old, screened volunteers were randomized to an experimental group ( n 62) to use a mobile phone-operated weight-loss programme or to a control group ( n 63) with no intervention. Via text me…
Number and nuances
The findings of the UK prevalence study of abuse and neglect among older people provide unique opportunities for adult protection systems to consider possible changes to their priorities, activities, services and publicity. This article reports first on the contribution of adult protection coordinators to the design and execution of the research. It then sets out potential uses for the evidence provided by the study by the adult protection commun…
Aging in a critical world
Social and Cultural Constructions of Ageing
This paper examines social and cultural constructions of first wave baby boomers, those born in the period 1945-1954. Boomers are depicted, variously, as bringing new lifestyles and attitudes to ageing and retirement; or heralding economic disaster; or placing fresh burdens on health and social care services. The paper seeks to explore narratives about the boomer generation, drawing on sociological studies, the mass media and cultural and social …
International and European policy on work and retirement
In this article, the authors critically examine themes that have become associated with work and retirement in the context of demographic change. Two discourses are looked at in detail, those of ‘active’ and ‘productive’ ageing, with a focus upon International and European social policy. Drawing on the work of Foucault and others, the emergence of a dominant discourse and its effects on policy-based understandings of ageing are examined. A new or…
Toward critical narrativity
Age, gender, narratives, and masquerades
Rusty, invisible and threatening
Levels of mature-age unemployment and under-employment are increasing in Australia, with older jobseekers spending longer unemployed than younger jobseekers. This article focuses on two key explanations of the difficulties confronting older jobseekers: human capital theory, which focuses on the obsolescence of older workers' job skills, and ageism in employment. Drawing upon narrative interviews with older Australians, it critically engages with …
Choosing Not To Be Old? Masks, Bodies and Identity Management in Later Life
This paper critically assesses an increasing use of mask motifs to examine questions of identity in later life. Two approaches are subjected to detailed analysis, both of which propose distinctive answers to the challenge to identity management emerging from high or post modernity. First, consideration is given to a postmodern ‘mask of ageing’ (Featherstone and Hepworth 1989), key elements of which include consumer culture and the ageing body. Se…
Intergenerational Relations
The dramatic increase in life expectancy and lowered fertility, especially in more advantaged countries, has resulted in people living longer and in more complex family structures. Other important changes affecting the family include greater geographical mobility, increased racial and ethnic diversity, new patterns of immigration and identity reformulation, as well as changing work and family roles. With reduced governmental resources available, …
Thinking about Generations
Three traditions of social theory are examined in this article, with a special emphasis being given to the ways that the concept of “generation” has been conceived and developed over time. These include Psychodynamic, Sociological, and Gerontological approaches with attention drawn to the similarities and differences among them. It is concluded that while conceptual development has been uneven, taken together, they provide a rich basis for a crit…
Lifestyles of belief
This paper examines the culture and narratives occurring in a purpose-built retirement community. It is argued that in order to understand the effects that such a community can have on wellbeing, it is necessary to analyse the interaction of a variety of interweaving narratives used to sustain a secure micro-cultural base. These narratives include formal representations, daily life as experienced by tenants and imaginative associations within com…
Baby boomers, consumption and social change
This paper outlines the ways in which the cohort born immediately following the Second World War illustrates changes in consumption patterns within their lives. The paper suggests that this cohort (often known as baby boomers) view themselves to be a ‘bridging’ generation between the ‘old’ ways of their own parents and the radically different views of the next generation. Now nearing or entering retirement and later life, the discussion considers…
Housing and care for older people
Retirement communities are a relatively new long-term accommodation and care option in the United Kingdom. Policy makers and providers endorse the proposition that they are suited for the accommodation of both ‘fit’ and ‘frail’ older people, although comparatively little is known about what it is actually like to live in such communities, about whether they cater adequately for older people with a wide spectrum of needs and abilities, or if they …
Social and Cultural Constructions of Ageing
This paper examines social and cultural constructions of first wave baby boomers, those born in the period 1945-1954. Boomers are depicted, variously, as bringing new lifestyles and attitudes to ageing and retirement; or heralding economic disaster; or placing fresh burdens on health and social care services. The paper seeks to explore narratives about the boomer generation, drawing on sociological studies, the mass media and cultural and social …
Interactional perspectives on the mistreatment of older and vulnerable people in long-term care settings
This article draws on a study aimed at developing theoretical and methodological understanding of the abuse and neglect (mistreatment) of older people in long-term care settings such as care homes and hospitals. It presents an interactionist account of mistreatment of older people in such establishments. Starting with an outline of definitional issues surrounding the topic, the allied concept of dignity is also briefly explored, and one important…
Defining elder abuse
The definition of elder abuse is at a formative stage in British social policy. This paper examines four existing definitions of elder abuse from policy and socio-legal perspectives. The development of the definitions is reviewed as part of the process of problem formation within the context of the social construction of old age in British social policy. Central themes and terms contained in the definitions are analysed in detail from legal and p…
Exploring generational intelligence as a model for examining the process of intergenerational relationships
The purpose of this article is to examine an emerging model of intergenerational relationships that takes as its starting point the degree to which it is possible to place oneself in the position of a person of another age, the ‘age-other’. The paper explores an experiential approach that draws on both sociological thinking on ‘generational consciousness’ and a debate in family gerontology on the relationships between conflict, solidarity and amb…
Aging in a critical world
Professional Helpers and Resistances to Work with Older People
Resistances to empathy with older service users are outlined, drawn primarily from Jungian psychology. It is suggested that lack of a helper's personal experience of old age allows disproportionate influence to be played by archetypal intrapsychic processes. These are augmented by helpers perceptions of a negative personal future and a tendency either to ignore the age appropriate projects of older persons or replace them with those appropriate f…
Work, health and the commodification of life's time
How to respond to an ageing society has become an increasingly important question, for employers, workers and policy makers. Here we critically engage with that debate, arguing that future approaches to the relationship between work and age should take into account multiple influences on older worker behaviour, including the combination of economic, lifecourse and personal priorities. We consider the international consensus that has emerged about…
Assessing the health impact of age-specific housing
It has been claimed that 'retirement communities', defined in this instance as voluntary communities of older people living in shared, purpose-built housing, combine the best attributes of residential and community living. Subjective health status may thereby be improved through a culture in which independence and autonomy are actively promoted. Concern has also been raised that age-segregated communities of this sort might produce 'ghettos' of i…
Adult Ageing and Social Policy
This article considers changing perceptions of adult ageing and their interpretation in social policy. Once wider international trends are outlined, Australian policy is used as a case example. It is argued that a mismatch between policy initiatives and personal change is a new social risk associated with demographic and socio-cultural development, having implications for the way in which social ageism and age discrimination should be considered.…
Defining the “perpetrator”
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to set out and discuss findings from a developmental study, commissioned by the English Department of Health and the charity, Comic Relief, which was commissioned to clarify definitional issues and recommend ways of operationalising key concepts for a prospective survey of abuse, neglect and loss of dignity in the care of older people in residential care in the United Kingdom (UK). Design/methodology/approach …
A family concern
The recognition of elder abuse is a relatively new phenomenon in British contexts. This paper charts the development of a social policy response by placing it within its historical context. Previous policy toward older age has focused on dependency and self-neglect. Government concern about the erosion of family values and implementation of the 1990 NHS and Community Care Act have led to elder abuse being seen as a problem of informal care within…
The Netherworld between Work and Retirement
A major theme within social gerontology is how retirement ‘is being re-organised, if not undone’. Institutional supports for retirement are weakening, with pension ages rising in many countries. Increasing numbers of older workers are working past traditional retirement age on a part-time or self-employed basis, and a growing minority are joining the ranks of the long-term unemployed. Drawing upon narrative interviews with older Australians who a…
Rethinking theoretical and methodological issues in intergenerational family relations research
This paper introduces some key theoretical and methodological developments in the study of intergenerational family relations. It draws on observations that a number of social issues are emerging that have an intergenerational dimension, that there is growing recognition that to study adult ageing one has also to study intergenerational relationships, and that a new architecture for social relations is beginning to take shape in the wake of demog…
Ageing, technologies of self and bio‐medicine
This paper unravels the conceptual and theoretical insights of Foucault’s later work on technologies of self in order to understand Bio‐medicine which impinges on the social construction of ageing. The article attempts to show how Foucault’s theoretical insights allows scholars of sociology and social policy to provide a critical appraisal of ageing. The paper also examines the relationship between ageing and self‐care in three contextual domains…
Introduction
Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, the relationship between work and ageing has become increasingly visible as a policy issue. It is both reflected in and influenced by changes in macro-economic policy, life-opportunities and social attitudes associated with growing older, as a combination of falling birth rates and increased longevity, and has put pressure on the traditional parameters of the working age. The idea of retiring at a …
Quality of care and the growth of private welfare for old people
Local Authority Registration Staff and the Boundary Between Public and Private Sector Care
This paper considers the role of local authority registration staff who hold a key boundary position between public and private welfare systems. It outlines a background of structural changes in British welfare, its influence on the roles and pressures created in local authority welfare bureaucracies and some results in terms of participation by service users. These developments are reflected in a change of focus from content to boundary negotiat…
Professional Helpers and Resistances to Work with Older People
Resistances to empathy with older service users are outlined, drawn primarily from Jungian psychology. It is suggested that lack of a helper's personal experience of old age allows disproportionate influence to be played by archetypal intrapsychic processes. These are augmented by helpers perceptions of a negative personal future and a tendency either to ignore the age appropriate projects of older persons or replace them with those appropriate f…
Consumers, case management and inspection
New legisation on Community Care has been proposed by the Conserv ative Government because it supposedly increases consumer choice and a flexible response to social need. However, a critical analysis of the two mechanisms for change, cave-management and 'arms-length' invection reveal tendencies in both that distance and obscure pressure to respond to service users and social problems
A family concern
The recognition of elder abuse is a relatively new phenomenon in British contexts. This paper charts the development of a social policy response by placing it within its historical context. Previous policy toward older age has focused on dependency and self-neglect. Government concern about the erosion of family values and implementation of the 1990 NHS and Community Care Act have led to elder abuse being seen as a problem of informal care within…
Choosing Not To Be Old? Masks, Bodies and Identity Management in Later Life
This paper critically assesses an increasing use of mask motifs to examine questions of identity in later life. Two approaches are subjected to detailed analysis, both of which propose distinctive answers to the challenge to identity management emerging from high or post modernity. First, consideration is given to a postmodern ‘mask of ageing’ (Featherstone and Hepworth 1989), key elements of which include consumer culture and the ageing body. Se…
Defining elder abuse
The definition of elder abuse is at a formative stage in British social policy. This paper examines four existing definitions of elder abuse from policy and socio-legal perspectives. The development of the definitions is reviewed as part of the process of problem formation within the context of the social construction of old age in British social policy. Central themes and terms contained in the definitions are analysed in detail from legal and p…
Mature imaginations
This paper critically assesses the portrayal of late life development in psychoanalysis and the wider psychodynamic tradition. Attention is drawn to the importance of this tradition both as a vehicle for personal change and as a cultural phenomenon in its own right. An analysis of historical trends indicates successive phases of accommodation to the practice of psychotherapy with mature adults, moving from a view that older people made unsuitable…
Lifestyles of belief
This paper examines the culture and narratives occurring in a purpose-built retirement community. It is argued that in order to understand the effects that such a community can have on wellbeing, it is necessary to analyse the interaction of a variety of interweaving narratives used to sustain a secure micro-cultural base. These narratives include formal representations, daily life as experienced by tenants and imaginative associations within com…
A Foucauldian Analysis of Old Age and the Power of Social Welfare
It is argued that the question of social welfare is a key, if often overlooked, component in the construction of power relations and identities in later life that can take its place next to debates on bioethics and consumer lifestyle. Foucault's (1977) claim, that identities are kept in place through the deployment of integrated systems of power and knowledge and a routine operation of surveillance and assessment, is critically examined in this c…
Assessing the health impact of age-specific housing
It has been claimed that 'retirement communities', defined in this instance as voluntary communities of older people living in shared, purpose-built housing, combine the best attributes of residential and community living. Subjective health status may thereby be improved through a culture in which independence and autonomy are actively promoted. Concern has also been raised that age-segregated communities of this sort might produce 'ghettos' of i…
Toward critical narrativity
Age, gender, narratives, and masquerades
Ageing, technologies of self and bio‐medicine
This paper unravels the conceptual and theoretical insights of Foucault’s later work on technologies of self in order to understand Bio‐medicine which impinges on the social construction of ageing. The article attempts to show how Foucault’s theoretical insights allows scholars of sociology and social policy to provide a critical appraisal of ageing. The paper also examines the relationship between ageing and self‐care in three contextual domains…
Beyond Appearances
Two areas of controversy are examined in this article, arising from contemporary debate on identity in later life. The first centers on whether adults are essentially similar regardless of age or whether different stages of life confer different life priorities. The second addresses the management of self in later life, with special attention being given to alternative interpretations of the relationship between interior and exterior experience. …
First steps
The article outlines the background to the recently commissioned UK national study of the prevalence of elder abuse and explains the methodology adopted in Stages 1 and 2 of the research. This is being funded by Comic Relief with co‐funding from the Department of Health and carried out by a team of researchers at King's College London and the National Centre for Social Research. Stage 1, the development work, was completed in autumn 2005. Stage 2…
Housing and care for older people
Retirement communities are a relatively new long-term accommodation and care option in the United Kingdom. Policy makers and providers endorse the proposition that they are suited for the accommodation of both ‘fit’ and ‘frail’ older people, although comparatively little is known about what it is actually like to live in such communities, about whether they cater adequately for older people with a wide spectrum of needs and abilities, or if they …
Thinking about Generations
Three traditions of social theory are examined in this article, with a special emphasis being given to the ways that the concept of “generation” has been conceived and developed over time. These include Psychodynamic, Sociological, and Gerontological approaches with attention drawn to the similarities and differences among them. It is concluded that while conceptual development has been uneven, taken together, they provide a rich basis for a crit…
Intergenerational Relations
The dramatic increase in life expectancy and lowered fertility, especially in more advantaged countries, has resulted in people living longer and in more complex family structures. Other important changes affecting the family include greater geographical mobility, increased racial and ethnic diversity, new patterns of immigration and identity reformulation, as well as changing work and family roles. With reduced governmental resources available, …
Number and nuances
The findings of the UK prevalence study of abuse and neglect among older people provide unique opportunities for adult protection systems to consider possible changes to their priorities, activities, services and publicity. This article reports first on the contribution of adult protection coordinators to the design and execution of the research. It then sets out potential uses for the evidence provided by the study by the adult protection commun…
Aging in a critical world
Social and Cultural Constructions of Ageing
This paper examines social and cultural constructions of first wave baby boomers, those born in the period 1945-1954. Boomers are depicted, variously, as bringing new lifestyles and attitudes to ageing and retirement; or heralding economic disaster; or placing fresh burdens on health and social care services. The paper seeks to explore narratives about the boomer generation, drawing on sociological studies, the mass media and cultural and social …
Weight loss by mobile phone
Objective To investigate the short- and long-term effectiveness and the predictors of weight loss in a mobile phone weight-loss programme among healthy overweight adults. Design One hundred and twenty-five healthy, overweight (BMI = 26–36 kg/m 2 ), 25–44-year-old, screened volunteers were randomized to an experimental group ( n 62) to use a mobile phone-operated weight-loss programme or to a control group ( n 63) with no intervention. Via text me…
Rethinking theoretical and methodological issues in intergenerational family relations research
This paper introduces some key theoretical and methodological developments in the study of intergenerational family relations. It draws on observations that a number of social issues are emerging that have an intergenerational dimension, that there is growing recognition that to study adult ageing one has also to study intergenerational relationships, and that a new architecture for social relations is beginning to take shape in the wake of demog…
Exploring generational intelligence as a model for examining the process of intergenerational relationships
The purpose of this article is to examine an emerging model of intergenerational relationships that takes as its starting point the degree to which it is possible to place oneself in the position of a person of another age, the ‘age-other’. The paper explores an experiential approach that draws on both sociological thinking on ‘generational consciousness’ and a debate in family gerontology on the relationships between conflict, solidarity and amb…
Psychology (33 obras) · Sociology (29 obras) · Political science (25 obras) · Medicine (23 obras) · Social Psychology (21 obras) · Migration, Aging, and Tourism Studies (18 obras) · Economics (15 obras) · Intergenerational Family Dynamics and Caregiving (15 obras) · Social science (14 obras) · Aging and Gerontology Research (13 obras)