Theorizing about aging well: constructing a narrative.

Sherry Ann Chapman

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PubMed · 15838822

Theorizing about aging well: constructing a narrative.

Sherry Ann Chapman

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Abstract

Aging well is new, again. The recent interest is part of a 50-year period of research. Contradictory conceptualizations of aging well create an opportunity to consider assumptions that underlie the concept. In this paper, through the construction of an aging-well, theorizing narrative, an underlying assumption is identified in past aging-well conceptual frameworks: to age well is to achieve self-integration in relation to particular sets of resources or forms of engagement. The narrative relates how more recent aging-well theorizing is being shaped by a growing interest in later life meaning-making. Evidence is presented of a contemporary shift toward describing aging well as the negotiation of the co-construction and reconstruction of multiple selves in an ongoing, open-ended process of meaning-making amid later-life events and transitions. The paper concludes with implications for future research.

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Aging Geriatrics Health Humans Narration Systems Theory Journal Article Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't Review

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Sherry Ann Chapman. 2005. Theorizing about aging well: constructing a narrative.. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15838822/

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