Colleen Mcgrath
Biographic Data
| ID | 3857069 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Colleen Mcgrath |
| GIVEN NAMES | Colleen |
| FAMILY NAME | Mcgrath |
| SIGNATURE | MCGRATH C |
| AFFILIATIONS | Western University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-0032-8092 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 21 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 65 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 21 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2016 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Deepening Understanding of Oasis, a Norc-Based Program: Perspectives from Housing Partners
Background As the Canadian population ages, supporting older adults’ desire to age in their homes and communities is vital. Oasis is an older adult-driven program implemented within naturally occurring retirement communities (NORCs) that fosters social connections to support aging in place. While housing partners provide space for such programs, their perspectives are underexplored. Objective This study examined housing partners’ experiences (lan…
Oasis Senior Supportive Living: An Innovative Low-Cost Community-Based Intervention to Support Healthy Aging in Place
Introduction: According to the World Health Organization, in 2019, there were one billion people aged 60 years and older. This number is projected to rise to 2.1 billion by 2050. However, older adults living in the community often experience loneliness and other health consequences. Our existing service model, which is heavily focused on disease and lacks the involvement of service users, is not adequately prepared to address the diverse social a…
Community Support Providers in the Social Networks of Older Adults Living in Naturally Occurring Retirement Communities (Norcs)
Introduction: The world population is aging, and most people prefer to stay in their homes for as long as possible. There is a growing number of naturally occurring retirement communities (NORCs)—unplanned neighborhoods or apartment buildings with a high proportion of older adults—in many countries such as Australia, Canada, and the USA. To experience healthy aging, older adults living in NORCs must be surrounded by a quality network encompassing…
Constructing ‘Otherness’ in the neighbourhood: Que(e)rying Older Adults’ Experiences of and Talk About Socio-Cultural Change
Drawing from 108 qualitative interviews with 38 participants from an ethnographic study investigating older adults’ experiences of inclusion and exclusion in two increasingly socio-economically diverse neighbourhoods, this paper employs a queer approach to identify how older adults construct and narrate socio-cultural change in the neighbourhood, as well as complicate simplistic binary understandings of older adults invoked in ageing-in-place lit…
A Critical Ethnographic Approach for Understanding How Environmental Factors Shape Experiences of Community Mobility for Older Adults Aging With and Into Vision Loss: A Protocol Paper
The number of older adults diagnosed with vision loss in Canada, and globally, is growing. Older adults with age-related vision loss (ARVL), including macular degeneration, glaucoma, and diabetic retinopathy, experience a reduced capacity to engage with their communities because their opportunities to access and engage with their environments are greatly reduced. This can lead to feelings of abandonment, enhanced fear, and social isolation, which…
Enacting the Principles of Participatory Action Research (PAR): Reflections From the Initial Stages of a Project With Older Adults With Vision Loss
Introduction: While existing reflections on participatory action research (PAR) emphasize the benefits experienced by participants in such studies, they often fail to critically interrogate the PAR process. This gap underscores the significance of process-oriented papers that illuminate the dynamics, supports, and hurdles of PAR, crucial for aligning scholarly endeavors with its fundamental principles of equitable participation, social transforma…
Research Practices to Foster Accessibility for, and the Inclusivity of, Older Adults With Vision Loss: Examples From a Critical Participatory Study
Introduction: It is important that the embodied experience of visual impairment is understood in research, and critical participatory action research (CPAR) is one such research methodology that encourages the direct participation of individuals with disabilities in the design, development, and dissemination of research. Methods: This reflexive paper unpacked how our research collective carried out accessible and inclusive CPAR with older adults …
Invisible, unrecognised and undervalued: Examining stories of unpaid work performed by older adults in their local neighbourhoods
Over the past 40 years, positive ageing discourses that speak to an expectation of continued productivity have gained prominence within research and policy. Such discourses have been critiqued as placing disproportionate value on the extension of older adults' working lives, while obscuring other valuable forms of work performed by older adults. Despite the emergence of theoretical conversations about the expansion of conceptions of work, few stu…
Neighbourhood-based participatory action research with older adults: Facilitating participation through virtual and remote methods
Participatory action research (PAR) is an effective means of collaborating with older adults to support community change. Limited PAR literature exists in which older adults catalyse social change within neighbourhoods, particularly using virtual methods. In this paper, we discuss a virtual PAR process with older adults that occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the results of inquiry into our application of PAR principles. We conducted PAR …
Experiential Value of Technologies: A Qualitative Study with Older Adults
This study investigated the experiences of older adults with technologies they own and determined how they value them. Thirty-seven older adults participated in a Show and Tell co-creation session at a one-day workshop. Participants described why they loved or abandoned technologies they own. Their responses were recorded and analysed using Atlas.ti 22.0.0. Seven main themes representing experiential value in older adults emerged from the analysi…
Contested occupation in place: Experiences of inclusion and exclusion in seniors’ housing
Congregate living among older adults aims to enhance important aspects of well-being, such as sense of community and social engagement. Such settings, however, involve a complexity of social and power relations, and inclusion and exclusion along lines of occupation and place can occur. In this paper we develop a concept of contested occupation in place and use this concept to explore experiences of inclusion and exclusion in a seniors-only apartm…
Engagement in the social context of the neighbourhood: A critical ethnographic study of older adults with age-related vision loss
Previous research has focused on the social environments of older adults with age-related vision loss (ARVL) and how support received from close social networks, such as family and friends, can support engagement in meaningful occupations, which refer to everyday activities that hold meaning for individuals. Little research attention, however, has been paid to how the social context of neighbourhoods may support or hinder engagement in community …
Applying the go-along method to enhance understandings of occupation in context
Engaging in human occupation is complex, often involving commonplace practices that cannot be readily articulated. Accordingly, a growing number of occupational science and occupational therapy scholars have called for expanded qualitative methodologies and methods to support enhanced understandings of occupation in context. In this paper we respond to these calls by discussing how the go-along method—a hybrid of participant observation and inter…
Situating occupational injustices experienced by children with disabilities in rural India within sociocultural, economic, and systemic conditions
This paper contributes to diversifying and situating understandings of occupational injustices through presenting findings from the knowledge generation phase of a participatory action research (PAR) project that utilized participatory filmmaking with children with disabilities in rural South India as co-researchers. Centering on situations of occupational injustices generated through a participatory analysis conducted with the child co-researche…
That's for old so and so's!’: Does identity influence older adults’ technology adoption decisions
The role of identity in older adults’ decision-making about assistive technology adoption has been suggested but not fully explored. This scoping review was conducted to understand better how older adults’ self-image and their desire to maintain this influence their decision-making processes regarding assistive technology adoption. Using the five-stage scoping review framework by Arksey and O'Malley, a total of 416 search combinations were run ac…
A participatory filmmaking process with children with disabilities in rural India: Working towards inclusive research
Children with disabilities often experience exclusion within their communities, and this exclusion can extend into research processes. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, however, emphasizes that children of all abilities need to be involved as decision makers in matters affecting them. This article provides an in-depth description of the process of a participatory action research project carried out with children with disab…
Using Participant Observation to Enable Critical Understandings of Disability in Later Life: An Illustration Conducted With Older Adults With Low Vision
Research with older adults aging with vision loss has typically been informed by a biomedical theoretical framework. With a growing focus, however, on critical disability perspectives, which locates disability within the environment, new methods of data collection, such as participant observation, are needed. This article, which reports on the findings from a critical ethnographic study conducted with older adults with age-related vision loss (AR…
A Protocol Paper on the Preservation of Identity: Understanding the Technology Adoption Patterns of Older Adults With Age-Related Vision Loss (ARVL)
There are a growing number of older adults with age-related vision loss (ARVL) for whom technology holds promise in supporting their engagement in daily activities. Despite the growing presence of technologies intended to support older adults with ARVL, there remains high rates of abandonment. This phenomenon of technology abandonment may be partly explained by the concept of self-image, meaning that older adults with ARVL avoid the use of partic…
Working Towards the Promise of Participatory Action Research: Learning From Ageing Research Exemplars
Within research addressing issues of social justice, there is a growing uptake of participatory action research (PAR) approaches that are ideally committed to equitable participation of community members in all phases of the research process in order to collaboratively enact social transformation. However, the utilization of such approaches has not always matched the ideal, with inconsistencies in how participation and action are incorporated. 'P…
Negotiating ‘positive’ aging in the presence of age-related vision loss (ARVL): The shaping and perpetuation of disability
Homelessness and aging: The contradictory ordering of ‘house’ and ‘home’
Working Towards the Promise of Participatory Action Research: Learning From Ageing Research Exemplars
Within research addressing issues of social justice, there is a growing uptake of participatory action research (PAR) approaches that are ideally committed to equitable participation of community members in all phases of the research process in order to collaboratively enact social transformation. However, the utilization of such approaches has not always matched the ideal, with inconsistencies in how participation and action are incorporated. 'P…
Negotiating ‘positive’ aging in the presence of age-related vision loss (ARVL): The shaping and perpetuation of disability
Homelessness and aging: The contradictory ordering of ‘house’ and ‘home’
A participatory filmmaking process with children with disabilities in rural India: Working towards inclusive research
Children with disabilities often experience exclusion within their communities, and this exclusion can extend into research processes. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, however, emphasizes that children of all abilities need to be involved as decision makers in matters affecting them. This article provides an in-depth description of the process of a participatory action research project carried out with children with disab…
Situating occupational injustices experienced by children with disabilities in rural India within sociocultural, economic, and systemic conditions
This paper contributes to diversifying and situating understandings of occupational injustices through presenting findings from the knowledge generation phase of a participatory action research (PAR) project that utilized participatory filmmaking with children with disabilities in rural South India as co-researchers. Centering on situations of occupational injustices generated through a participatory analysis conducted with the child co-researche…
That's for old so and so's!’: Does identity influence older adults’ technology adoption decisions
The role of identity in older adults’ decision-making about assistive technology adoption has been suggested but not fully explored. This scoping review was conducted to understand better how older adults’ self-image and their desire to maintain this influence their decision-making processes regarding assistive technology adoption. Using the five-stage scoping review framework by Arksey and O'Malley, a total of 416 search combinations were run ac…
Using Participant Observation to Enable Critical Understandings of Disability in Later Life: An Illustration Conducted With Older Adults With Low Vision
Research with older adults aging with vision loss has typically been informed by a biomedical theoretical framework. With a growing focus, however, on critical disability perspectives, which locates disability within the environment, new methods of data collection, such as participant observation, are needed. This article, which reports on the findings from a critical ethnographic study conducted with older adults with age-related vision loss (AR…
Invisible, unrecognised and undervalued: Examining stories of unpaid work performed by older adults in their local neighbourhoods
Over the past 40 years, positive ageing discourses that speak to an expectation of continued productivity have gained prominence within research and policy. Such discourses have been critiqued as placing disproportionate value on the extension of older adults' working lives, while obscuring other valuable forms of work performed by older adults. Despite the emergence of theoretical conversations about the expansion of conceptions of work, few stu…
Neighbourhood-based participatory action research with older adults: Facilitating participation through virtual and remote methods
Participatory action research (PAR) is an effective means of collaborating with older adults to support community change. Limited PAR literature exists in which older adults catalyse social change within neighbourhoods, particularly using virtual methods. In this paper, we discuss a virtual PAR process with older adults that occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the results of inquiry into our application of PAR principles. We conducted PAR …
Constructing ‘Otherness’ in the neighbourhood: Que(e)rying Older Adults’ Experiences of and Talk About Socio-Cultural Change
Drawing from 108 qualitative interviews with 38 participants from an ethnographic study investigating older adults’ experiences of inclusion and exclusion in two increasingly socio-economically diverse neighbourhoods, this paper employs a queer approach to identify how older adults construct and narrate socio-cultural change in the neighbourhood, as well as complicate simplistic binary understandings of older adults invoked in ageing-in-place lit…
Enacting the Principles of Participatory Action Research (PAR): Reflections From the Initial Stages of a Project With Older Adults With Vision Loss
Introduction: While existing reflections on participatory action research (PAR) emphasize the benefits experienced by participants in such studies, they often fail to critically interrogate the PAR process. This gap underscores the significance of process-oriented papers that illuminate the dynamics, supports, and hurdles of PAR, crucial for aligning scholarly endeavors with its fundamental principles of equitable participation, social transforma…
Research Practices to Foster Accessibility for, and the Inclusivity of, Older Adults With Vision Loss: Examples From a Critical Participatory Study
Introduction: It is important that the embodied experience of visual impairment is understood in research, and critical participatory action research (CPAR) is one such research methodology that encourages the direct participation of individuals with disabilities in the design, development, and dissemination of research. Methods: This reflexive paper unpacked how our research collective carried out accessible and inclusive CPAR with older adults …
Contested occupation in place: Experiences of inclusion and exclusion in seniors’ housing
Congregate living among older adults aims to enhance important aspects of well-being, such as sense of community and social engagement. Such settings, however, involve a complexity of social and power relations, and inclusion and exclusion along lines of occupation and place can occur. In this paper we develop a concept of contested occupation in place and use this concept to explore experiences of inclusion and exclusion in a seniors-only apartm…
Applying the go-along method to enhance understandings of occupation in context
Engaging in human occupation is complex, often involving commonplace practices that cannot be readily articulated. Accordingly, a growing number of occupational science and occupational therapy scholars have called for expanded qualitative methodologies and methods to support enhanced understandings of occupation in context. In this paper we respond to these calls by discussing how the go-along method—a hybrid of participant observation and inter…
Negotiating ‘positive’ aging in the presence of age-related vision loss (ARVL): The shaping and perpetuation of disability
Homelessness and aging: The contradictory ordering of ‘house’ and ‘home’
Working Towards the Promise of Participatory Action Research: Learning From Ageing Research Exemplars
Within research addressing issues of social justice, there is a growing uptake of participatory action research (PAR) approaches that are ideally committed to equitable participation of community members in all phases of the research process in order to collaboratively enact social transformation. However, the utilization of such approaches has not always matched the ideal, with inconsistencies in how participation and action are incorporated. 'P…
A participatory filmmaking process with children with disabilities in rural India: Working towards inclusive research
Children with disabilities often experience exclusion within their communities, and this exclusion can extend into research processes. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, however, emphasizes that children of all abilities need to be involved as decision makers in matters affecting them. This article provides an in-depth description of the process of a participatory action research project carried out with children with disab…
Using Participant Observation to Enable Critical Understandings of Disability in Later Life: An Illustration Conducted With Older Adults With Low Vision
Research with older adults aging with vision loss has typically been informed by a biomedical theoretical framework. With a growing focus, however, on critical disability perspectives, which locates disability within the environment, new methods of data collection, such as participant observation, are needed. This article, which reports on the findings from a critical ethnographic study conducted with older adults with age-related vision loss (AR…
A Protocol Paper on the Preservation of Identity: Understanding the Technology Adoption Patterns of Older Adults With Age-Related Vision Loss (ARVL)
There are a growing number of older adults with age-related vision loss (ARVL) for whom technology holds promise in supporting their engagement in daily activities. Despite the growing presence of technologies intended to support older adults with ARVL, there remains high rates of abandonment. This phenomenon of technology abandonment may be partly explained by the concept of self-image, meaning that older adults with ARVL avoid the use of partic…
That's for old so and so's!’: Does identity influence older adults’ technology adoption decisions
The role of identity in older adults’ decision-making about assistive technology adoption has been suggested but not fully explored. This scoping review was conducted to understand better how older adults’ self-image and their desire to maintain this influence their decision-making processes regarding assistive technology adoption. Using the five-stage scoping review framework by Arksey and O'Malley, a total of 416 search combinations were run ac…
Engagement in the social context of the neighbourhood: A critical ethnographic study of older adults with age-related vision loss
Previous research has focused on the social environments of older adults with age-related vision loss (ARVL) and how support received from close social networks, such as family and friends, can support engagement in meaningful occupations, which refer to everyday activities that hold meaning for individuals. Little research attention, however, has been paid to how the social context of neighbourhoods may support or hinder engagement in community …
Applying the go-along method to enhance understandings of occupation in context
Engaging in human occupation is complex, often involving commonplace practices that cannot be readily articulated. Accordingly, a growing number of occupational science and occupational therapy scholars have called for expanded qualitative methodologies and methods to support enhanced understandings of occupation in context. In this paper we respond to these calls by discussing how the go-along method—a hybrid of participant observation and inter…
Situating occupational injustices experienced by children with disabilities in rural India within sociocultural, economic, and systemic conditions
This paper contributes to diversifying and situating understandings of occupational injustices through presenting findings from the knowledge generation phase of a participatory action research (PAR) project that utilized participatory filmmaking with children with disabilities in rural South India as co-researchers. Centering on situations of occupational injustices generated through a participatory analysis conducted with the child co-researche…
Experiential Value of Technologies: A Qualitative Study with Older Adults
This study investigated the experiences of older adults with technologies they own and determined how they value them. Thirty-seven older adults participated in a Show and Tell co-creation session at a one-day workshop. Participants described why they loved or abandoned technologies they own. Their responses were recorded and analysed using Atlas.ti 22.0.0. Seven main themes representing experiential value in older adults emerged from the analysi…
Contested occupation in place: Experiences of inclusion and exclusion in seniors’ housing
Congregate living among older adults aims to enhance important aspects of well-being, such as sense of community and social engagement. Such settings, however, involve a complexity of social and power relations, and inclusion and exclusion along lines of occupation and place can occur. In this paper we develop a concept of contested occupation in place and use this concept to explore experiences of inclusion and exclusion in a seniors-only apartm…
Invisible, unrecognised and undervalued: Examining stories of unpaid work performed by older adults in their local neighbourhoods
Over the past 40 years, positive ageing discourses that speak to an expectation of continued productivity have gained prominence within research and policy. Such discourses have been critiqued as placing disproportionate value on the extension of older adults' working lives, while obscuring other valuable forms of work performed by older adults. Despite the emergence of theoretical conversations about the expansion of conceptions of work, few stu…
Neighbourhood-based participatory action research with older adults: Facilitating participation through virtual and remote methods
Participatory action research (PAR) is an effective means of collaborating with older adults to support community change. Limited PAR literature exists in which older adults catalyse social change within neighbourhoods, particularly using virtual methods. In this paper, we discuss a virtual PAR process with older adults that occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the results of inquiry into our application of PAR principles. We conducted PAR …
Constructing ‘Otherness’ in the neighbourhood: Que(e)rying Older Adults’ Experiences of and Talk About Socio-Cultural Change
Drawing from 108 qualitative interviews with 38 participants from an ethnographic study investigating older adults’ experiences of inclusion and exclusion in two increasingly socio-economically diverse neighbourhoods, this paper employs a queer approach to identify how older adults construct and narrate socio-cultural change in the neighbourhood, as well as complicate simplistic binary understandings of older adults invoked in ageing-in-place lit…
A Critical Ethnographic Approach for Understanding How Environmental Factors Shape Experiences of Community Mobility for Older Adults Aging With and Into Vision Loss: A Protocol Paper
The number of older adults diagnosed with vision loss in Canada, and globally, is growing. Older adults with age-related vision loss (ARVL), including macular degeneration, glaucoma, and diabetic retinopathy, experience a reduced capacity to engage with their communities because their opportunities to access and engage with their environments are greatly reduced. This can lead to feelings of abandonment, enhanced fear, and social isolation, which…
Enacting the Principles of Participatory Action Research (PAR): Reflections From the Initial Stages of a Project With Older Adults With Vision Loss
Introduction: While existing reflections on participatory action research (PAR) emphasize the benefits experienced by participants in such studies, they often fail to critically interrogate the PAR process. This gap underscores the significance of process-oriented papers that illuminate the dynamics, supports, and hurdles of PAR, crucial for aligning scholarly endeavors with its fundamental principles of equitable participation, social transforma…
Research Practices to Foster Accessibility for, and the Inclusivity of, Older Adults With Vision Loss: Examples From a Critical Participatory Study
Introduction: It is important that the embodied experience of visual impairment is understood in research, and critical participatory action research (CPAR) is one such research methodology that encourages the direct participation of individuals with disabilities in the design, development, and dissemination of research. Methods: This reflexive paper unpacked how our research collective carried out accessible and inclusive CPAR with older adults …
Deepening Understanding of Oasis, a Norc-Based Program: Perspectives from Housing Partners
Background As the Canadian population ages, supporting older adults’ desire to age in their homes and communities is vital. Oasis is an older adult-driven program implemented within naturally occurring retirement communities (NORCs) that fosters social connections to support aging in place. While housing partners provide space for such programs, their perspectives are underexplored. Objective This study examined housing partners’ experiences (lan…
Oasis Senior Supportive Living: An Innovative Low-Cost Community-Based Intervention to Support Healthy Aging in Place
Introduction: According to the World Health Organization, in 2019, there were one billion people aged 60 years and older. This number is projected to rise to 2.1 billion by 2050. However, older adults living in the community often experience loneliness and other health consequences. Our existing service model, which is heavily focused on disease and lacks the involvement of service users, is not adequately prepared to address the diverse social a…
Community Support Providers in the Social Networks of Older Adults Living in Naturally Occurring Retirement Communities (Norcs)
Introduction: The world population is aging, and most people prefer to stay in their homes for as long as possible. There is a growing number of naturally occurring retirement communities (NORCs)—unplanned neighborhoods or apartment buildings with a high proportion of older adults—in many countries such as Australia, Canada, and the USA. To experience healthy aging, older adults living in NORCs must be surrounded by a quality network encompassing…
Sociology (17 works) · Psychology (16 works) · Political science (10 works) · Medicine (9 works) · Social science (8 works) · Citizen journalism (7 works) · Ethnography (7 works) · Health disparities and outcomes (7 works) · Participatory action research (7 works) · Public relations (7 works)