The world is undergoing a transformation in societal aging. In almost all countries, life expectancies are increasing rapidly, as is the proportion of the population that is elderly. In this course we examine the uniquely social aspects of old age and aging. We investigate how aging over the adult life course is shaped by our relationships in families, communities, cultural groups, and birth-cohorts, in conjunction with our individual characteristics. We also examine how the aging process is related to social institutions such as the family, the economy, the health care system, and the political system.

The course has several overarching themes. One theme centers on basic research and theory with special attention to theoretical and empirical strategies for assessing and explaining social processes in the later years and over the life-course. A second theme focuses on diversity of the aging experience as structured by gender, race, ethnicity, social class and age cohort. A third theme concerns the meanings of old age and how these meanings are socially constructed based on our mutually agreed upon expectations of people in the later stages of life. A fourth theme revolves around issues of social, cultural, and historical changes that have altered the nature of personal, family, and cohort relationships with the aged, and created challenges for public aging policy.