Premium
Constructions of Reality
Author(s) -
Estes Carroll L.
Publication year - 1980
Publication title -
journal of social issues
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.618
H-Index - 122
eISSN - 1540-4560
pISSN - 0022-4537
DOI - 10.1111/j.1540-4560.1980.tb02025.x
Subject(s) - psychological intervention , social work , service delivery framework , public relations , psychology , work (physics) , service (business) , sociology , nursing , social psychology , medicine , political science , business , engineering , mechanical engineering , marketing , law
This paper examines the perspectives and practice orientations of professionals influential in local policy making and service delivery for the aged. A study of staff and members of community planning agencies for the elderly reveals that the majority of professionals perceive problems of the aged to be social structural in origin, yet the most influential and expert respondents were more likely to perceive the problems as individually generated by older persons themselves. Suggested solutions to and interventions for problems of the aged were unanimously institutional level, requiring broad social change efforts. In contrast to these beliefs, the professionals studied work in settings that practice traditional accommodative, adjustment‐oriented (rather than restorative) approaches to the aged in their social and planning agencies. The sociological and policy implications of these findings are discussed.