June's troubled transition: adjustment to residential care for older adults with dementia.

In research on dementia care and housing transitions, only rarely are residents themselves present as active informants. This is a costly omission, inasmuch as manifestations of dementia, perceptions of care settings, and residents' experience of such transitions are both complex and highly variable. In this article, drawn from a larger study of the social organization of care in residential care/assisted living (RC/AL), we develop a detailed, ethnographic narrative that combines first-person reflections by, and observational data on, a single resident--a focal case. The account suggests that for older adults with mild to moderate dementia, awareness of serious impairment among coresidents can be both distressing and stigmatizing. We further argue that assumptions about and attributions of dementia by staff members, compounded by immediate demands of caregiving, may create a self-fulfilling prophecy resulting in residents' resistance and withdrawal. The case also suggests that, to the extent this interactional dynamic is present, distinctive goals in RC/AL, such as enhanced self-determination among residents, are undermined.

Narrative interviewing: process and benefits in teaching about aging and the life course.

Narrative interviewing (also termed qualitative interviewing) is a valid and vivid way to apply perspectives and concepts in gerontology to individual lives. As such it is widely used as a research method. However, teachers in many fields also assign interview projects for students, as supplemental assignments in aging-related courses. This article clarifies key assumptions and goals of narrative interviewing, in relation to other approaches to interviewing in the social sciences and humanities; discusses the distinctive relevance of narrative interview projects for teaching about aging; recounts steps in the interview process in connection with both classroom and individual work with students; and addresses practical and ethical issues that teachers should anticipate and address to ensure successful projects. Topics and results of narrative interview projects are illustrated with reference to student research which the author has supervised.

Implications of welfare reform on the elderly: a case study of provider, advocate, and consumer perspectives.

Whereas many studies of welfare reform have focused on effects on children and families, little research has examined the implications of welfare reform for the elderly. This case study incorporates interviews with service providers for the aging, members of advocacy organizations, and two focus groups of older consumers conducted in the multi-ethnic urban community of San Francisco. Study findings suggest that welfare reform has had both direct and indirect effects on the elderly and their services in the study community. Direct effects derive primarily from changes in the welfare reform legislation that had the effect of undermining both immigrants' eligibility for and claiming of public assistance benefits. Indirect effects on older persons include increased child-care demands upon grandparents. The case study data bear on a significant policy change within the broader trend of devolution at a historical point when anti-immigrant sentiment in the United States was running high.