Dissertation Research: Determinants of Social Status in the Elderly: A Field Study in American and Western Samoa

9816523Beall/Lindstrom-Ufuti该奖项支持凯斯西储大学一名人类学专业学生的论文研究。在控制了其他决定因素后，学生将检验这一假设，即在发展中的社会中，老年人的社会地位高于在更发达社会中的老年人的地位。该项目将在萨摩亚进行，比较更传统的西萨摩亚和更现代化的美属萨摩亚。这名学生将从总共600次人种学访谈中收集老年人的社会和功能状况的数据，访谈对象包括60岁及以上的老年人、更年轻的成年家庭成员和家庭成员，以及更年轻的非亲属村落居民。这些数据将包括年龄、性别、现代化变量，包括社会、村庄和家庭层面的衡量标准、社会等级和社会地位。这一研究将促进我们对现代化进程及其结果的理解。在世界老年人口迅速增长，发展中国家与西方世界接触日益增多的时候，加强我们对老年人在不断变化的社会文化条件下的社会地位性质的深入了解至关重要。此外，这项研究将有助于培养一位年轻的社会科学家，并增进我们对世界这一重要区域的了解。

9816523Beall / Lindstrom-Ufuti This award supports the dissertation research of an anthropology student from Case Western Reserve University. The student will test the hypothesis that the social status of elders in a developing society is higher than the status of elders in a more developed society, after controlling for other determinants. The project will take place in Samoa, comparing the more traditional Western and the more modernized American Samoa. The student will collect data on the social and functional status of the elderly from a total of 600 ethnographic interviews with elders 60 years old and older, younger adult family and household members, and younger non-relative village residents. The data will include age, sex, modernization variables including social, village and household level measures, social rank, and social status. This research will advance our understanding of the modernization process and its outcomes. At a time when the world's elderly population is growing rapidly and developing nations are in increasing contact with the Western world, increasing our in-depth understanding of the nature of elders' social status under changing socio-cultural conditions is of key importance. In addition the research will contribute to the training of a young social scientist and advance our understanding of this important region of the world.