Robert L. Rubinstein

Sampling in Qualitative Research: Rationale, Issues, and Methods

In gerontology the most recognized and elaborate discourse about sampling is generally thought to be in quantitative research associated with survey research and medical research. But sampling has long been a central concern in the social and humanistic inquiry, albeit in a different guise suited to the different goals. There is a need for more explicit discussion of qualitative sampling issues. This article will outline the guiding principles and rationales, features, and practices of sampling in qualitative research. It then describes common questions about sampling in qualitative research. In conclusion it proposes the concept of qualitative clarity as a set of principles (analogous to statistical power) to guide assessments of qualitative sampling in a particular study or proposal.

The significance of personal objects to older people

This article reports on the meaning of personal objects to older persons. A sample of 88 elderly individuals were asked to name personally significant objects and discuss their meanings. Responses were analytically sorted into a number of thematically based categories including: objects symbolizing relationships with others past and present; objects as symbols of the self; those serving as defenses against loss and other deleterious changes; objects of care; representations of the past; and objects as the focus of mature sensuousness. The article supports the view that personal objects can play an important role in maintaining personal identity in late life and may function as a distinctive language for the expression of identity and personal meaning.

Personal identity and environmental meaning in later life

Abstract This article examines the relationship of personal identity to environmental meaning in later life. Four key elements of personal identity are described for each of three elderly informants who were questioned in a series of ethnographically-based qualitative interviews for a research project on the meaning of home. The manner in which each of these elements of personal identity is expressed environmentally is then described. The article supports the view that the subjective construction of the life course plays an important role in accounting for older persons environmental meanings.

Themes in the meaning of caregiving

Abstract This article argues that making meaning is an integral part of the caregiving process for caregivers. Extended narrative case material is presented on the experiences of three middle-aged children giving care at home to an older parent with senile dementia. Three categories of meaning are described. A distinction is made between caregiving themes or the personal meanings of caregiving, and analytical themes or cross-individual significances.

Long-Term Care Planning as a Cultural System

Abstract This paper treats long-term care planning from a cultural perspective, that is, as a cultural system in which components of long-term care interlock culturally and therefore meaningfully. In the introduction and background sections, we provide a context in which long-term care planning may be viewed, based on the finding that relatively few people take advantage of long-term care planning and insurance; we also discuss some earlier work on long-term care from a psychological perspective that emphasizes themes of imagination and self-efficacy. We then examine long-term care from a cultural perspective by identifying and explicating five broad themes that help us better understand the meaning of long-term care planning to Americans. Finally, we use these themes to suggest some important social policy correlates.

Older men's health. Sociocultural and ecological perspectives.

This article identifies a set of conditions that renders the morbidities and earlier deaths of men as the outcome. The article also discusses four factors that affect older mens health and longevity: culture, class, race and ethnicity, and social organization and participation.

Baby Boomers in an Active Adult Retirement Community: Comity Interrupted

PURPOSE OF THE STUDY This article explores a clash between incoming Baby Boomers and older residents in an active adult retirement community (AARC). We examine issues of social identity and attitudes as these groups encounter each other. DESIGN AND METHODS Data are drawn from a multiyear ethnographic study of social relations in senior housing. Research at this site included in-depth, open-ended interviews (47), field notes (25), and participant observation in the field (500 hr). Research team biweekly discussions and Atlas.ti software program facilitated analysis. FINDINGS We begin with a poignant incident that has continued to engender feelings of rejection by elders with each retelling and suggests the power and prevalence of ageism in this AARC. We identify three pervasive themes: (a) social identity and image matter, (b) significant cultural and attitudinal differences exist between Boomers and older residents, and (c) shared age matters less than shared interests. IMPLICATIONS Our data clearly show the operation of ageism in this community and an equating of being old with being sick. The conflict between these two age cohorts suggests that cohort consciousness among Boomers carries elements of age denial, shared by the older old. It also challenges the Third Age concept as a generational phenomenon.

The social context of grief among adult daughters who have lost a parent

Abstract The interface between grief, an intrapsychic and behavioral response to bereavement, and mourning, a process involving the social and cultural prescriptions for the expression of grief, has seldom been examined. Using data from a qualitative study on the effects of an elderly parent s death on adult daughters, this paper provides evidence that grief and mourning influence each other. Individual response to loss can be understood by examining interwoven intrapsychic and socially evaluative domains. Individuals struggling to incorporate these two, sometimes conflicting, dimensions may in part make choices in their own experiences of and responses to bereavement. This paper suggests that the internal debate involved in balancing personal and cultural forces not only leads to control of the expression of grief, but molds the intrapsychic experience of grief as well. For example, the need to control grief both serves to shape and contain it, and assists in maintaining an enduring tie with the deceased elderly parent.

Anthropological methods in gerontological research: Entering the realm of meaning

Abstract In gerontology, anthropological research methods represent a minority position about the nature of the human world and how one understands it. This article concerns the role of anthropological methods in gerontological research. It outlines the place of these methods in the totality of social science research, the structure of social gerontology as a hybrid discipline that may incorporate anthropological insight, and the important role that has been and can be played by anthropological research methods.

The engagement of life history and the life review among the aged: A research case study

Abstract There has been very little consideration of how life history work by a researcher might be viewed from the perspective of the older research informant. This article concerns differences in perspectives on life history research by informant and researcher. I discuss these through an examination of two different processes of understanding life events: the life review on the part of the informant and the collection of life historical data on the part of the researcher. They are seen as both independent processes and interacting engagements that incorporate distinctive concerns. To better understand the relationship of these, researchers need to specify two sets of key variables subsuming technical and interactional aspects of life history work and which may include life review work on the part of older informants. These topics are explored in a lengthy case presentation and its analysis.