Dana Sawchuk

The Raging Grannies: Defying Stereotypes and Embracing Aging Through Activism

The Raging Grannies are a group of older women who dress as “grannies” and alter the words of traditional songs to communicate political messages. Based on a review of song lyrics, participant observation, and interviews with 15 Grannies, this study explores Raging Granny activism and the strategic adoption of the grandmother identity. The Grannies challenge stereotypes of older women through the fact and forms of their activism, and they see their aged status as empowering and as something to be embraced. Grannies report that the grandmother identity serves a protective function and enhances movement efficacy. This case study adds to the sparse literature on older womens political activism and demonstrates that identity exploration is not restricted to youth-centered movements.

PEACE PROFILE: The Raging Grannies

As their name and these lyrics suggest, The Raging Grannies are a movement of impassioned older women who are centrally concerned with the elimination of war and weapons and the promotion of peace and justice. Since 1987, when the first Grannies came together to rage against the presence of nuclear warships in Victoria Harbour, British Columbia, more than one hundred Granny “gaggles” (chapters) have sprung up in cities and towns across North America and around the world. Dressed stereotypically in colorful and kitschy granny costumes (often floral dresses with aprons and hats, sensible shoes and shawls), these women employ a wide range of street-theatrical tactics to attract attention to their antiwar messages.

Horkheimer and Adorno on Social Change: Problems and Potential in Light of “History from Below”1

In this article, I critique Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adornos post-1940 pessimism regarding the potential for social change in modern society. The basis for this critique is the “history from below” perspective, a perspective which has particular relevance to the discussion since Horkheimer and Adornos critical theory and history from below share certain core theoretical presuppositions. History from belows re-appropriation of past struggles and relational analysis of domination provide a useful antidote to critical theorys excessive focus on past suffering and its fatalistic interpretation of domination. The history from below perspective helps to demonstrate that Horkheimer and Adornos pessimism was neither theoretically consistent nor inevitable.

Representations of Autism and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in the North American Roman Catholic Print Media, 1990–2013

This article is a qualitative content analysis of how autism and autism spectrum disorder are portrayed in the North American Roman Catholic print media. The findings suggest that there is an absence of medicalization and scientific explanations for the disorder in the magazines and newspaper analyzed. Instead, these publications stress the acceptance and inclusion of individuals with autism spectrum disorder and a celebration of their differences. The themes found in these Catholic publications differ dramatically from those found in mainstream secular magazines, which tend to approach childrens developmental issues from a biomedicalized and risk society perspective that emphasizes intensive mothering.

Aging and older adults in three Roman Catholic magazines: Successful aging and the Third and Fourth Ages reframed

This article is a qualitative content analysis of how aging and older adults are represented in the articles of three Roman Catholic magazines in the United States: America, Commonweal, and U.S. Catholic. The findings suggest that, as in mainstream secular magazines, the concept of successful aging is common in portrayals of older adults in the Third Age. Distinctive in Catholic magazine portrayals of successful aging is an emphasis on meaningful activity and on the wisdom that is gained and transmitted in this stage of life. In contrast to the lack of attention to Fourth Age decline in mainstream magazines, in the Catholic publications the difficult features of such deterioration are acknowledged but are also reframed as potential sources of value. The theoretical implications of these more complex faith-based renderings of the Third and Fourth Ages are briefly explored.

Religious coping among older, unemployed workers: Narratives of the job-loss experience

ABSTRACT This article is a qualitative examination of how older workers who lost their jobs during the Great Recession and its prolonged recovery employed religion to cope with this stressful experience. Based on 62 in-depth, semi-structured interviews with middle-class adults age 50 or older, our data reveal five distinct themes in relation to religious coping with the job-loss experience: faith as solace, surrendering to God, meaning making, discontent with God or believers, and gaining strength from religious community. Findings are placed in the context of the broader religious coping literature and several empirical and applied implications are discussed.

The birthday card exercise: Replicating research as active learning

ABSTRACT One means to uncover common attitudes toward aging and older adults is to perform content analyses of popular print media forms such as newspapers, magazines, and even greeting cards. This active learning activity involves small groups of undergraduate students replicating, in a limited way, elements of a published research study on the messages conveyed by age-related birthday cards. In the exercise, each group of students is asked to analyze a set of 15 different birthday cards and to share qualitative and quantitative findings with classmates before submitting a written “discussion section” on their results to the instructor. The author demonstrates how this exercise, because it is aligned with key course learning outcomes as well as with coursework preceding and following the activity, is integrated into the overall learning environment of the course. Comments on student findings, the potential benefits of and modifications to the exercise, and the transferability of the exercise to other course contexts are also provided.