USC Directory Entry
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Vern Bengtson, Ph.D.:
AARP University Professor of Gerontology, Professor of Sociology, and Director of the Division of Social and
Behavioral Services Research, Aging families, grandparenthood, social-change
theories of aging.
Vern Bengtson holds the AARP/University Chair in Gerontology and
is Professor of Sociology at the University of Southern California.
He received his BA from North Park College in philosophy and his
MA and Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. He has published 11
books and almost 200 articles in gerontology, the sociology of life
course, family sociology, social psychology, and ethnicity and aging.
He has been elected President of the Gerontological Society of America
and has been granted a MERIT award for research from the National
Institute on Aging.
Early in his career Bengtson started the Longitudinal Study of
Generations, a multi-generation and multi-disciplinary investigation
of families, aging, and social change that is now approaching its
30th year of data collection. For this and his other research contributions
Bengtson has received a number of honors, including (twice) the
Reuben Hill Award from the National Council of Family Relations
(1980 and 1986); the Distinguished Scholar Award from the American
Sociological Association's section on aging (1995); the Robert W.
Kleemeier Award from the Gerontological Society of America (1996);
and the Ernest W. Burgess Award from the National Council on Family
Relations (1998). In addition he has received several awards for
teaching, which has provided him the greatest satisfaction throughout
his career.
 Click
here to see Dr. Bengtson discuss aging issues.
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