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Correspondence: Address correspondence to Gretchen E. Alkema, MSW, LCSW, Davis School of Gerontology, University of Southern California, 3715 McClintock Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0191. E-mail: alkema{at}usc.edu
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Abstract |
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Key Words: Aging research • Discipline paradigm • Interdisciplinary theory
Gerontology's growth as a discipline has been limited by a lack of critical elements such as unifying theories, appropriate research methodologies, and an accepted research focus (Levine, 1981). However, in the past decade, scholars have acknowledged the beginnings of a common gerontological imagination (Bass & Ferraro, 2000; Ferraro & Chan, 1997), a key thematic element for the 2006 Gerontological Society of America's (GSA) Annual Scientific Meeting, and have asserted that gerontology is coming of age as a discipline (Katz, 1998; Lowenstein, 2004).
This debate about the disciplinary orientation of gerontology has lingered for decades, with little consensus on these issues within the community of researchers in aging. Here, we respond to Bass and Ferraro's (2000) call for a more rigorous dialogue to accelerate movement toward interdisciplinary approaches in gerontology. We first provide a brief review of gerontology's development and challenges, and then we present evidence that gerontology is emerging as its own discipline by describing recent achievements and areas of growing consensus. Finally, we offer a conceptual framework that articulates the synergy across aging-related knowledge development and provide examples of innovative gerontological scholarship. Our overarching goals in writing this piece are to suggest gerontology's advancement as an integrative discipline through thoughtful reflections on its past and current achievements and to stimulate further discussion among the varied readership of The Forum on an integrative perspective of the field.
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Why a Discipline? |
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Given that our argument is about gerontology's disciplinary status, it is important to define what we mean by a discipline. The Oxford English Dictionary defines a discipline as a branch of instruction or education; a department of learning or knowledge; or a science or art in its educational aspect. With the use of this broad description, gerontology appears to be a discipline, as evidenced by its professional organizations (e.g., the GSA, the American Society on Aging [ASA]), publications (e.g., The Gerontologist, the Handbook on Aging series), and the gerontology degree programs that have developed at both the undergraduate and graduate level. Clearly, gerontology is both a department of knowledge and a branch of instruction. However, the field remains divided along the boundaries of other "source" disciplines in which the majority of researchers have been trained, including biology, psychology, sociology, and others. Some scholars have used more stringent criteria to evaluate gerontology's disciplinary status (Achenbaum, 1995; Levine, 1981), arguing that gerontologists must identify their own intellectual purpose beyond the work of the disciplines in which the majority of scholars were trained, and that gerontological theories and research must make a unique contribution beyond those from the source disciplines. GSA membership is divided into sections, and researchers and practitioners in aging too often operate independently. Moreover, there are large differences in the content of degree programs in gerontology, most of which appear to be multidisciplinary rather than interdisciplinary (Bass & Ferraro, 2000).
This tension between multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives on aging must be addressed in order for gerontology to move forward as a unique discipline. Generally, multidisciplinary work involves inquiry from several disciplines, the boundaries of which are maintained and the unique contributions of each are highlighted (Ferraro & Chan, 1997). In contrast, an interdisciplinary field may also involve multiple disciplines, but it minimizes disciplinary boundaries and highlights joint contributions. Multidisciplinary activity emphasizes cooperation among disciplines, whereas interdisciplinary activity emphasizes integrated approaches to knowledge development.
Gerontology initially evolved as a multidisciplinary endeavor in a disciplinary context. Although much early work on aging stemmed from a biomedical perspective (Cowdry, 1939; Dewey, 1939), researchers acknowledged that the "problem" of aging was multidimensional, deserving a multidisciplinary approach and synthesis of findings from various fields. In the postwar period, gerontology flourished beyond bench research into the policy and practice domains, with the establishment of the GSA in 1945, the first White House Conference on Aging in 1961, the creation of the Administration on Aging in 1965, and the NIA's formation in 1974. Early books in the Handbooks on Aging series, such as the Handbook of Aging and the Individual (Birren, 1959) and the Handbook of Social Gerontology (Tibbits, 1960), reflected a commitment to understanding aging research from a variety of perspectives. However, universities continued to be structured toward narrower specializations within intellectual fields (Achenbaum, 1995). Researchers in the second half of the 20th century also created theories that were largely discipline specific, limiting gerontology's ability to advance as a unique discipline (Moody, 1988).
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Challenges in Gerontology's Development |
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Tension between disciplinary perspectives has led to a lack of interdisciplinary theoretical development (Achenbaum, 1987; Bengtson, Burgess, & Parrott, 1997), a lack of appropriate methods for studying aging (Nesselroade, 1990), and, in some areas of gerontology, a narrow focus on individuals resulting in microfication (Hagestad & Dannefer, 2001). Historically, gerontology has been described as "data rich and theory poor" (Bengtson, Rice, & Johnson, 1999). Efforts to develop theories in specific disciplines that neglect the interdisciplinary nature of gerontology have generally failed to link concepts between disciplines (Moody, 1988). As Birren (1959) and Kleemeier (1965) acknowledged four decades ago, gerontology must build conceptual linkages across biological, psychological, and social processes of aging to function as a unified field.
Disciplinary boundaries also have contributed to the lack of appropriate research methods for studying aging. Early researchers often focused on age, tending to neglect the process of aging (Marshall, 1996). More complex methods were needed to address multidimensional changes represented by aging and to better distinguish between age and cohort effects (Nesselroade, 1990; Schaie, 1965). Furthermore, some areas of gerontology have focused on individuals (e.g., cognitive change in individuals, retirement timing among individuals) and neglected the importance of structural factors and macrosocietal issues on the aging process (Hagestad & Dannefer, 2001).
Equally significant structural barriers have limited gerontology's development in two important ways. First, there has been a limited translation of knowledge across the domains of research, policy, and practice; second, there has been a lack of institutional support for interdisciplinary work. Philosophical and operational challenges have limited gerontology's ability to create coherent and systematic linkages between research, policy, and practice domains (Feldman & Kane, 2003; Feldman, Nadash, & Gursen, 2001; Kemper, 2003). Ideally, basic research should inform policy decisions and practice applications, leading to applied research and implementation. Applied research findings should then inform a basic research agenda, unifying the iterative process of knowledge development and application. However, this cycle of research has not adequately resulted to date in any field (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 1998).
Furthermore, existing reward systems within academic structures have greatly contributed to the divides among disciplines and across research, policy, and practice domains. Developing the language and skills necessary to communicate across disciplines and domains requires an enormous investment from all participants. Academic rewards of tenure, endowed professorships, and research-lab space as well as support from funding entities overwhelmingly favor discipline-based achievements over interdisciplinary approaches to knowledge development and translation. Challenges of interdisciplinary work include the time and effort needed to build collaborative partnerships and the difficulties of sharing intellectual credit, labor, and indirect costs.
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Gerontology's Milestones |
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For gerontology to be considered as a unique field of inquiry, it must have developed (a) unique theories; (b) a research methodology; (c) a formalized organization that promotes professional socialization and information dissemination; and (d) a common vernacular (Achenbaum, 1995; Levine, 1981; Lowenstein, 2004). Each element is necessary but not sufficient to justify a discipline's existence. We suggest that gerontology is achieving these criteria but still has some milestones to accomplish.
Theoretical Development in Gerontology
Research on aging has generated several unique theories and orienting frameworks. Several current theories operate on a common definition of aging as change over time within a physical and social environment. These theories are not unique to a source discipline; instead they integrate elements of each discipline into a common framework. For instance the life-course perspective (Elder, Johnson, & Crosnoe, 2003), with its focus on life-span development, agency, time and place, timing, and linked lives, is one of the most commonly cited theoretical perspectives in social gerontology (Bengtson et al., 1997). Research using the life-course perspective has addressed topics as varied as the relationship between early-life illness and late-life health (Blackwell, Hayward, & Crimmins, 2001), the effect of immigration on well-being (Lewin & Stier, 2003), and changing dynamics in parent–child reciprocity over time (Silverstein, Conroy, Wang, Giarrusso, & Bengtson, 2002). Although the life-course perspective may not lead to testable hypotheses, it is extremely useful for explaining findings by placing life-span development in a social context and supporting a broad range of aging-related research questions.
Similarly, cumulative advantage and disadvantage theory has emerged as a perspective for interdisciplinary studies of aging-related phenomena within a larger social and environmental context (Dannefer, 2003). It suggests the systematic tendency for interindividual divergence in a given characteristic (e.g., health, income, well-being) with the passage of time. Although this theory comes from a sociological tradition, it is closely related to biological concepts such as stress theories of aging (Finch & Seeman, 1999) and allostatic load (McEwen & Stellar, 1993), positing progressive physiological dysregulation for those individuals with greater exposure to social stressors. It is also consistent with psychological concepts such as the cognitive reserve hypothesis (Stern, 2002), suggesting that individuals build cognitive reserve through education and cognitively complex occupations. Over time, humans accumulate exposures that may either be protective against negative consequences of aging or increase the risk of negative outcomes. Consequently, cumulative advantage and disadvantage theory has a wide range of potential applications.
Finally, ecological theories in aging (Lawton & Nahemow, 1973) offer an interdisciplinary perspective incorporating social and environmental characteristics with individual age-associated change (Wahl & Weisman, 2003). This perspective has been used to study topics including caregiver adaptation (Gitlin & Corcoran, 1993), health status (Shipp & Branch, 1999), and cognitive impairment (Hays, Burchett, Fillenbaum, & Blazer, 2004).
These theoretical examples suggest that common issues in aging encompass the importance of early-life experiences, accumulation of benefits and risks across the life course, and adaptation to change late in life. Rather than focusing on social, psychological, or biological domains, for example, these theories focus on time, asking fundamental questions of any gerontological theory: What changes with age and what stays the same? They share a common orientation toward aging as continuity and change over time within a physical, behavioral, and social context, making gerontology a study of trajectories and transitions: What lifetime trajectories lead to successful aging? What characterizes the transition to widowhood? What factors predict transitions to disease? This observation parallels that of Morgan and Kunkel (1998), who suggested that gerontology has at least two fundamental underpinnings: a focus on time-related change at levels from cells to societies; and a recognition that these changes are influenced by and interact with changes on other levels.
Although each theoretical perspective provides a valuable framework for interdisciplinary research on aging, none should be considered a grand theory (Achenbaum & Bengtson, 1994). Indeed, it seems unlikely that any one theory will explain all age-related phenomena. Fortunately, gerontology does not need a grand theory to be an integrative discipline. Instead, theory development in gerontology strives to account for varied dimensions of the aging experience and seeks to discover themes across these dimensions.
Research Methods
Various research approaches, including both qualitative and quantitative methods, are important in contemporary gerontological inquiry. However, longitudinal methods have become the standard by which all aging research is judged. Although cross-sectional results are frequently reported, the number of longitudinal analyses has increased greatly in the past 50 years (Ferraro & Kelley-Moore, 2003).
Longitudinal research methods are the standard for at least four reasons. First, early gerontological research did not regularly consider cohort effects, leading to inaccurate estimations of age effects (Schaie, 1965). This changed when longitudinal psychology studies, such as the Seattle Longitudinal Study (Schaie, 1996), showed that intellectual abilities in adulthood were far more stable than researchers previously thought. Breakthroughs like these led to a demand for additional studies observing change within individuals over time. Second, longitudinal research is needed to test theories like those just described, which place an importance on continuity and change over time. Third, longitudinal data such as those from the Asset and Health Dynamics Among the Oldest Old Study (Soldo, Hurd, Rodgers, & Wallace, 1997) and the Longitudinal Studies on Aging (Kovar, Fitti, & Chyba, 1992) have become more widely available, given the extensive support from federal agencies for longitudinal data collection. Finally, researchers have developed specialized ways of analyzing longitudinal data, such as event history analysis and hierarchical linear modeling, thereby contributing to the widespread utilization of longitudinal research designs.
Professional Organizations
Today, gerontology has been institutionalized through a variety of professional organizations, including the GSA, the ASA, the Association for Gerontology in Higher Education, and several regional gerontology associations (e.g., the Southern Gerontological Society). Perhaps gerontology's most important research-focused organization, the GSA, has grown from 24 members at its founding to over 5,000 members at this time (although membership has declined somewhat in recent years). Members of these organizations represent multiple disciplines, reflect diverse topics of interests, and participate in academic, governmental, and private-sector research and practice in aging. They have been instrumental in disseminating aging research, advocating for federal funding for aging research, increasing minority participation in aging scholarship, and developing professional standards. Over 35 journals related to gerontology and geriatrics have been created since 1946, with both greater specialization and integration in recent years (Bass & Ferraro, 2000). In addition, The Gerontologist has historically been an interdisciplinary publication that brings researchers and practitioners together to apply interdisciplinary perspectives to improving the welfare of older adults. Gerontology degree programs have also rapidly increased, from 5 in 1976 to 32 in 1992 (Ferraro & Chan, 1997).
Yet despite great progress, gerontological organizations and publications are often divided along disciplinary lines. For instance, the Journal of Gerontology split into four journals in 1987, reflecting the four sections of the GSA and their distinct views of aging research. This scholastic divide has diminished the number of places to publish high quality, interdisciplinary research on aging. However, the current editor of the Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences is reversing this tide by acknowledging gerontology's inclusive nature and explicitly inviting a broader range of journal submissions (Ferraro, 2006).
Common Language and Values
Despite interdisciplinary agreement on theories and research methods, gerontologists have yet to define a common language and values. Significant debate exists about the purpose of aging research (Robert, 2004): Is it to slow aging and delay death, or to improve the aging experience of older adults? Is successful aging an appropriate goal? Should gerontology function as a science in the positivist tradition, or should it attempt to emancipate older adults on the basis of a critical perspective? More practically, how do we define old age? There appears to be agreement that traditional definitions of aging have focused too narrowly on disability and decline, but few alternative definitions have been proposed. If gerontology is to move through these challenges toward strengthening its role as a unique discipline, more debate is needed on these fundamental questions.
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Conceptual Framework for Gerontology's Future |
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Although gerontology builds on a number of disciplines and fields (e.g., anthropology, humanities, medicine), the disciplines of biology, psychology, and sociology provide essential foundations of gerontology, each considering the aging experience from its own discipline-specific perspective. Convergence of the age, aging, and aged themes are shown as intersections of the Venn diagram (Figure 1), representing how each of these three source disciplines has addressed aging studies within its own boundaries.
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Where does gerontology fit among the various disciplinary endeavors and themes? Gerontology is the area of convergence in Figure 1 and exists to create and translate knowledge in the nexus of aging studies. It serves to generate a higher level of intellectual capital by operating between and within work on aging among source disciplines and reformulating linkages across aging scholarship in innovative ways. Gerontology, as we propose it, is an integrative field of study, one that must both account for and understand the interconnections of multiple established disciplines when age, aging, and the lives of older people are studied.
However, scholarship and practice in gerontology and other disciplines do not stand alone; rather they are embedded within a dynamic mosaic of contextual elements, including the cultural, economic, environmental, historical, and political contexts. Inclusion of these contextual elements signifies that knowledge development cannot and does not occur in a vacuum, but instead transcends the boundaries of any particular discipline to include elements influencing the subject matter. To understand the aging experience and develop research questions that access its fundamental nature within the age, aging, and aged triad, gerontologists are charged with considering interrelationships among the following: (a) biopsychosocial characteristics that shape individual, family, societal, and population-level behavior; (b) contextual elements of cultural heterogeneity, economic benefits and constraints, the physical environment, historical underpinnings, and the political landscape that fundamentally influence knowledge development and application; and, most importantly, (c) linkages across all these concepts to accurately perceive the world in which individuals age.
Clearly, our characterizations of these disciplines and contextual elements are ideal types as each is internally complex. For example, issues of race, ethnicity, and gender in aging are thematically exemplified throughout our framework with connections to all three disciplinary foci as well as the broader contextual factors. Applied fields of study, such as public health and social work, are also represented, given that service to aging individuals is best accomplished when researchers and practitioners take into account a more holistic perspective. In addition, the components in Figure 1 have not always been weighted equally, as biomedical research and practice has historically been more heavily represented than the other elements in gerontological scholarship. However, gerontology's purpose as an integrative discipline is to move beyond parallel processes of aging research in distinct arenas and harness the richness of these concepts to understand and improve the lives of older adults. This has been a central aim of gerontology since its inception (Achenbaum, 1995; Putney, Alley, & Bengtson, in press).
Critics of this approach claim that a gerontologist attempts to be a jack-of-all-trades, and master of none. However, gerontologists typically specialize in a particular topic area, such as health services research, caregiving, or mental health, integrating knowledge across disciplines and contexts. Doctoral-trained gerontologists in particular provide invaluable expertise to ask and address comprehensive questions of the aging experience in three ways. First, they are trained to recognize the interconnections of topic-based knowledge from the contributions of multiple disciplines and to communicate across the different disciplinary languages. Gerontologists then integrate these contributions to construct new, synergistic knowledge on the topic. Lastly, they utilize the research, policy, and practice domains as mechanisms through which this knowledge is created and applied.
Let us use retirement as an example topic area: Gerontologists are skilled at understanding how the integration of biological, psychological, and social factors has a profound impact on retirement decision making, both at individual and population levels. Factors include retiree health status, attitudes about leaving paid employment, family caregiving responsibilities, income expectations from defined-benefit and defined-contribution plans, availability and access to health care, and economic and political forces at state or national levels that affect employment choices, among others. Ignoring any one factor leaves researchers with an incomplete picture of retirement patterns, potentially biasing research findings and leading to ineffective policy solutions and practice applications.
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Examples of Innovative Gerontological Scholarship |
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Another example is work by Zsembik and Peek (2001) attempting to explain late-life racial differences in cognitive function. They found that race had indirect effects on cognitive function both through social risk factors, including education and health insurance, and biological risk factors, such as blood pressure and vascular conditions. This important research combined biological, psychological, and sociological data in a longitudinal design to understand cognitive impairment, one of the most important issues for quality of life in old age. Many more examples of innovative aging research that extend beyond the source disciplinary boundaries exist, including investigations of the relationship between gender and health (Gold, 2002) and the association between religion and hypertension (Krause et al., 2002).
Building on a rich tradition of interdisciplinary scholarship, many collaborative efforts in gerontology have also advanced beyond research by joining with policy and practice domains. One such effort is the Evidence-Based Prevention Programs Initiative, a 3-year interdisciplinary effort funded by the Administration on Aging to translate evidence-based practices into aging network programs (Administration on Aging, 2004). Thirteen projects nationwide are currently implementing clinically efficacious health-promotion interventions in community-based programs that serve chronically ill older adults. These interventions are being evaluated for continued effectiveness to improve older adults' health status beyond the research domain (Glasgow, Lichtenstein, & Marcus, 2003). Other examples include the Edward R. Roybal Centers for Applied Gerontology, which translate research into practice in several topic areas (highlighted in the March 2003 special issue of The Gerontologist), and the Kanes' work on improving quality of life in nursing homes by translating research findings into practical assessment tools (R. A. Kane, 2003; R. L. Kane et al., 2005).
Gerontologists are discovering new ways to integrate multiple disciplinary perspectives within a larger contextual milieu to address some of the most pressing issues in the field. This is not to say that traditional discipline-specific scholarship in aging is not valuable (Kleemeier, 1965). It has been and will continue to be one of the most important ways to understand age-related phenomena. However, integrative gerontological efforts provide new ways to comprehend and apply knowledge to the multidimensional issues surrounding aging and older people.
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Model Limitations |
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We further acknowledge the inadequacy of any one conceptual framework to be relevant to all fields described here. Our goal is not to offer a definitive framework for those in the biology, psychology, or sociology of aging, but rather to demonstrate their roles in the development of gerontology as more than the sum of its parts. We hope others will expand and transform our model in ways that further advance gerontology as a unique, integrative discipline.
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Gerontology's Future as a Discipline |
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As the field moves forward, gerontologists must define and examine questions related to its future: How should universities support basic and applied gerontological research? How can we structure institutions to improve communication across fields and professions to advance knowledge development and application on aging? How can the solidification of interdisciplinary fields like gerontology transform the mission and practice of academic and research institutions in the 21st century beyond traditional disciplinary boundaries? How will gerontologists justify the importance of their field when the population is no longer aging? We challenge newcomers and long-timers in the field alike to explore these and other questions and to develop opportunities for further discussion on gerontology's future.
We believe that gerontology's success in developing beyond its current state must originate within the community of gerontologists and researchers in aging from other disciplines that support its advancement. Gerontology can no longer wait for other disciplines to formally validate its existence; emerging gerontologists must define the parameters and expanses of the field themselves. In this quest, gerontologists should pay heed to the immortal words of the 1960s feminist movement: Name or be named.
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Footnotes |
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1 Davis School of Gerontology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles.
Decision Editor: Linda S. Noelker, PhD
Received for publication June 11, 2005. Accepted for publication April 10, 2006.
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  K. F. Ferraro Imagining the disciplinary advancement of gerontology: whither the tipping point? Gerontologist, October 1, 2006; 46(5): 571 - 573. [Full Text] [PDF]
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