Anne Carolina Ramos

Older migrants in Luxembourg – care preferences for old age between family and professional services

ABSTRACT Based on biographic and qualitative network interviews with first-generation migrants from Portugal, Italy, and Germany, aged now 65 years and older, we reconstruct their preferences for later dependency on long-term care in old age (‘hands-on’ care). We regard the interviewees’ assessment of their situation as ways of achieving agency by taking into consideration the formal and informal options for care. Our results show that older adults’ care preferences are influenced by aspects associated with old age that are not specific for older migrants, and at the same time, by aspects that are strongly connected to the fact of being a migrant such as language, culture, and transnational orientation. We find a clear preference for paid care work. Challenges or even barriers in regards to care homes are related to language and culture, which lead to an anticipation of marginalisation and social isolation inside these institutions. Furthermore, it becomes evident that the different contexts of migration strongly correspond with class-specific social positioning.

Apresentação. Educação e Envelhecimento

Faculdade Meridional (IMED), Passo Fundo/RS – BrasilO Brasil encontra-se em uma fase de mudanca da estrutura etaria da sua populacao. Um numero cada vez maior de idosos e um numero cada vez mais enxuto de criancas e adolescentes tem feito com que, pela primeira vez na historia recente, a maior parcela da populacao brasi-leira seja predominantemente adulta e em idade ativa. Sob o ponto de vista demografico, o envelhecimento populacional e resultado de dois fatores principais: o primeiro e a forte diminuicao da taxa de fecundi-dade, que caiu de 6,2 filhos por mulher em 1960 para 1,8 filhos em 2012; o segundo e a diminuicao da mortalidade infantil, que passou de 121% em 1960 para 15,7% em 2012. Tais fatores foram impulsionados por mu-dancas no campo social, educacional, cultural e da saude, como a des-coberta dos antibioticos, a criacao das unidades de terapia intensiva e das vacinas, na metade do seculo passado, e as mudancas no estilo de vida, nos anos 1960. Com isso, a populacao brasileira envelheceu rapi-damente nos ultimos 50 anos, e o grupo das pessoas idosas

Piecing Together Ideas on Sociocultural Psychology and Methodological Approaches

In this commentary, I will piece together some transversal ideas throughout the articles that compose the thematic issue Self-identity on the move: methodological elaborations focusing on two main aspects: (i) the relation between the individual and the society and how self-identity is constructed in context; and (ii) data generalization in qualitative studies. I will base my commentary on the reflections brought forth by the articles on these two topics. My aim is to trace a line on which the authors, in their contributions to this issue, dialogue among each other with respect to the key elements of the individual, the social context, the (self)identity, and data generalization in qualitative research.