Policy Oriented Gerontology Curriculum (archive, not updated since June 2002)
The aging of our national population has raised awareness of the many social policies affecting older Americans. Increasingly, students in all disciplines have a need, and a desire, to understand these complex issues as they are debated in national and state forums. One of the problems, however, with most gerontology texts or the treatment of aging issues in other courses is their inability to keep up with rapidly changing political forces. In addition, it is unreasonable to expect instructors to be able to remain current on all of the issues and their subtleties. Our first objective is to increase awareness and understanding of aging-related policy issues across curricula in post-secondary institutions.
To help accomplish these goals, we have created policy-oriented issues components for gerontology and geriatrics curricula. These components deal specifically with a variety of social policy issues involving aging Americans. The components provide timely and accurate information on terms, trends, debates, and legislation surrounding the issues. This information will be continually updated and will make use of the new technology of the Internet for providing current knowledge and access to a wide variety of resources.
Another objective is to disseminate these curricula to our colleagues. To this end, CPR hosted its third workshop, Introducing Public Policy Issues in Aging into the Curriculum, in June 2002 for college educators who wanted to introduce new or strengthen existing courses dealing with public issues in aging.
Policy Oriented Curriculum Components
- Economic Issues of Aging by Timothy M. Smeeding.
This component is organized to first introduce the topic of the economic status of the aged and then to examine sources of economic well-being (earnings, social security, pensions, savings, other) and then specific needs in old age, particularly those related to health care provision and financing. Two key meta-policy perspectives: generational equity and cross-national comparisons fill out the component.
- Family Issues and Aging by Christine L. Himes.
This component is organized around key issues concerning families and the elderly. The component begins with a demographic perspective on the family structure and living arrangements of the elderly. Key family relationships are then discussed; marital, sibling, child, and grandchild. Family caregiving is included as a separate issue. The key perspective is demographic, although a variety of other sociological perspectives are represented. It should be noted that great diversity is found in the families of the elderly. This component does not discuss perspectives of minority families as a separate issue, rather those perspectives are represented within each section.
- Political Science Perspectives on Aging by Robert Hudson.
This syllabus ties materials largely, but not exclusively, from political science to the field of gerontology and in particular to the needs and presence of older Americans in political life. There is both "distal" or contextual material and "proximate" policy-relevant material included. While all of the material included here is "political," not all such material comes from the pens of political scientists. Thus, items from economists, sociologists, demographers, and others are included where the contribution is of overtly political/policy relevance.
- Demography, Aging, and Public Policy by Douglas A. Wolf.
This course is intended to provide students with an understanding of the basic tools of demographic analysis; to acquaint them with key facts about demographic trends in the United States and elsewhere, and with the connections among fundamental demographic forces and population aging; to survey a series of topics in "social demography" and "social gerontology" of particular importance in aging societies; and to consider some of the policy issues that arise in connection with population aging.
- Health Care for an Aging Society by Thomas H. Dennison.
This outline is organized around key issues shaping health policy for an aging society. The component begins with a demographic perspective of the aging society. This is followed by a look at the service utilization patterns of the elderly, structure of the service delivery system, and the cost of care.
A collection of online resources in addition to those included in the subject matter modules above.
Copyright 2002 Syracuse University. All materials herein may be downloaded, printed and distributed freely for educational and research uses as long as this copyright notice is attached. No commercial use of this material may be made without express written permission.
