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Older People Sociology

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Social workers are faced with a growing challenge in their role to promote social justice and challenge the social construction of old age on a micro and macro level (BASW, 2012). The growing number of older people has led to a significant factor in debates, and the contact and experiences of people with older adults are likely to impact their views and help to shape people's perception in either a positive or negative light of older adults (Crawford and Walker, 2008). According to Crawford and Walker (2008), the word’s society uses to describe older people, have varying connotations attached to them. For example, different words used on a daily basis to describe older adults with varying memory issues often include senile, mad or confused. Therefore, by referring to an older individual using word’s such as “the confused” or any other words above, it allows for people within society to ignore the older person as an individual but instead view them using the label they have been ascribed to the service user (Baldwin and Capstick, 2007). …show more content…
For example, older people experiencing difficulties might object to receiving or seeking support for fear of being perceived as a burden (Burke and Parker, 2007). Stigmatisation of an older person with dementia arises in part because the individual with the illness falls short of meeting societal values of productivity, self-control, mastering and independence (Liu et al, 2008). Compared to other individuals within society embodying these values the older adult with dementia is perceived as less than fully human which may lead to social isolation (Liu et al,

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