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Cross-cultural gerontology research methods: challenges and solutions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 March 2011

IRIS CHI
IRIS CHI*
Affiliation:
School of Social Work, University of Southern California, USA.
*
Address for correspondence: Iris Chi, 669 W. 34th Street, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0411, USA. E-mail: ichi@usc.edu
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Abstract

Cross-cultural research in the behavioural and social sciences uses data from several societies or distinct cultural groups to describe the diversity of human behaviour and test hypotheses about behaviour and culture. This paper reviews the historical development and current state of cross-cultural research in the social sciences and gerontology. Cross-cultural research in gerontology is important because the social processes of ageing vary. It aims to distinguish universal from culturally-specific processes and determine how cultural factors influence individual and population ageing. It has to overcome many challenges: how to design an equivalent and unbiased study, how to access different cultures, how to contextualise these cultures, and how to ensure that questions are meaningful for different cultures. Appropriate strategies include using an international multicultural research team, becoming familiar with the local culture, maintaining good relationships with community leaders, studying only those aspects of behaviour that are functionally equivalent while avoiding the idiosyncratic, using appropriate measures, and encouraging equal partnership and open communication among colleagues. Cross-cultural research has been growing and has become a basis for globally-relevant social gerontology. To highlight the complexity of cross-cultural research and lessons learnt from such research experience, this paper describes an example study of long-term care that involved researchers from more than 30 countries and from many disciplines.

Keywords

cross-culturalgerontologymethodageinginternational
Type
Articles
Information
Ageing & Society , Volume 31 , Issue 3: Methodologies for Ageing Populations , April 2011 , pp. 371 - 385
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

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