Diversifying Images of Older Adults

Dear Colleagues,

Many previous studies on the images of older adults have shown that older people have primarily been looked upon in accordance with two typical archetypes: either as the relatively affluent golden-ager or as the rather frail and dependent older person. These archetypes fit within a larger frame of categorizing social groups along a continuum of warmth and competence, following the stereotype content model (SCM) as proposed by Fiske et al. (2002). In public media worldwide, older people are underrepresented and presented stereotypically. Despite the ample research on images of older people, the current research is dominated by studies from the USA and UK. Furthermore, study samples are overwhelmingly based on student and general populations. 

In an effort to look at the diversity within images held, we intend to pay particular attention to the countries and subgroups that are not often included in current studies in order to expand our understanding of how older adults are viewed. For instance, we are interested in (inter)national qualitative and quantitative research detailing images of older adults, in studies presenting the views of older adults themselves, the views of older females, representatives of the LGBTQ community or various ethnic and other groups. All these groups may have different views on how older people are (re)presented and whether the dominating images of older adults do justice to the actual diversity within the groups. 

On top of this, we seek articles that shed light on factors that may influence the images held, to further understand the diversity within groups in view of older adults. This aspect of images of older adults has received relatively little attention thus far, mainly because of a predominance of larger-scale studies of an explorative nature. These studies do not address various societal roles that older adults can fulfill at the same time and the complexity of their identities shaped by the categories of difference such as sex, gender, ethnicity, SES and others. Such an intersectional lens will help us to further understand the mechanisms at play when images of older adults are shaped.

Dr. Jolanda Lindenberg
Dr. Elena Bendien
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Social Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• images of older adults
• ageism
• self-ageism
• diversity