Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

Communication plays a substantial role in influencing understandings and self-presentations with regard to age. While the immutable passing of time (and rising chronological age) is at the heart of life-span development issues, our age group identifications and the age groups into which we are categorized are not deterministically organized by chronological age. Rather, age identities and categorizations are considerably more malleable. Gender or ethnicity category distinctions remain relatively impermeable over time, and the boundaries between such groups remain fairly rigid and clear for most people (people who are multiracial “passing” as members of other groups, or who are transsexual/transgendered, constitute exceptions here). In contrast, age group memberships change with time and divisions between age groups are fuzzy and highly negotiable. As a result, they are perhaps more open to social construction (→  Discursive Psychology ). This provides opportunities to study the communicative practices that people employ to manage their age identities. Negative age stereotypes and prejudicial (ageist) attitudes are also common. Despite the fact that most of us will (or hope to) get old, many young and old people hold negative views of older adulthood ( Kite et al. 2005 ). Hence, age presents unique opportunities and points of interest for identity scholars. One approach to age ... log in or subscribe to read full text