Introduction

"All elderly people are alike". This is one of the typical stereotypes which describes elderly people. The word "Elderly" or "Ageing" is often recognized as infirm, forgetful, isolated, sexually inactive, dependent, irritable, and unhappy. However, many research shows that this negative myths and stereo-type of elderly people is spread out especially among young people because of the influence of the mass media (Harris 1990, Neuhaus and Neuhaus 1982, Minichiello 1992). The image which comes from stereotypes would cause us to mistake images for reality and use images as direct evidence of the actual social relationships and activities in everyday life (Featherstone and Hepworth:1990).

The image of elderly people is not universal all over the world. It has much cultural diversity in each country. For example, it is likely to say that Japanese people value the experience and wisdom of elderly people and employees who are highly honored. Although the seniority system could be meaningful in the work place, it can be continued only as long as people are employed in Asian countries (Aspin 1994). In contrast to the western society, where people are encouraged to be active throughout their lives, the ideal of aging in Asian countries could be a disengagement from society (Thursz and Nusberg 1995). Also, the lifestyle which is based on culture will infludence the image of eldelry people. While in Asian countries children tend to live with their parents, less than 10% of elderly people in western countries live with thier children. These cultural differences will create the difference of the image of eldelry people.

This research topic is worthwhile because very little research has addressed the image of the elderly people among young people, such as university students. The result of the survey would lead to find the characteristic of the image and status of elderly people in the different cultural context, and bring out the future study about the influence of the image to elderly people in social policy context. I will conduct this research because aged care or problems in aging will become more crucial, not only in Australia but in most developed countries. Therefore, the image and attitude held young people are likely to be very important elements in future social policies for elderly people.

Framework of the study

Many images we describe ageing and elderly people are negative stereotypes, they are always missrepresentation of fact. They show a form of symbolic stigmatisation which appears in practical everyday action. Featherstone and Hepworth (1990) argued that ageing is not just biological processes of physical decline, but is constructed in terms of the symbolic imagery available to us. They warned that such negative steretypes are damaging to our relationships with elderly people. The images about elderly people come from so-called common sense observations. These are often expressed in the form of vague generalizations that many people undoubtedly accept as obvious truths about human behavior (Harris:1990). For example, the idea "All elderly people are alikeﾓ is the most widespread stereotype imposed on elderly people. Contrary to the missunderstanding, there is a constant and gradual feature of uniqueness as a result of varied experiences that promote a diversifying influence. Although people are willing to perceive the uniqueness of each child, they do not extend such perception to elderly people (Neuhaus and Neuhaus:1982).

Many research shows that the stereotypes to elderly people are cultivated mainly by the mass media. The analysis of characters and programs in prime-time television in the U.S founded that elderly people are noticeably under-represented. The ignorance of elderly people in comparison to their number in the population will often cause stereotypes . When they appear, they often had problems and were reliant on younger people for help or were likely to be cast in minor parts who are foolish or eccentric (Gerbner, Gross, Signorielli and Morgan:1980, Hampes:1992, Harris:1990, Perlmutter:1985). Other survey about the portrayal of the Elderly in Magazine Advertisements in the U.S also founded that the elderly people are under-represented in the major U.S magazine advertisements. Although the scarcity of the elderly in magazine ads suggests that the elderly are not regarded to play a major role in the consumer society, the ads showed a less negative image of the elderly than in the case of televison dramatic programs (Gantz, Walter, Gartenberg, Howard M, Rainbow, Cindy K:1980).

The analysis of Gerbner, Gross, Signorielli and Morgan also argued that television cultivate negative images of the elderly. Such negative images are stronger among younger respendents, those between the ages of 18 to 29. Perhaps, because young people are more distant from old age and tend to have less direct experience with it. In fact, the relationships cited above are stronger among those who have little contact with the elderly. Also, social messages in the media influence to childrenﾕs system of belief about the world. They concluded that the more people, especially young people watch television, the more they tend to perceive elderly people in generally negative and unfavorable terms (Gerbner, Gross, Signorielli and Morgan:1980, Huston and Wright:1982 )

Although many research argued that the image to elderly among young people are strongly influenced by the mass media, I believe most research missed the personal family backgrounds and experiences with elderly people among samples. Firstly, the relation with grandparents and the status of grandparents within the familyis the most important factors which influence to the image to elderly people among young people. Even if young people has never lived with grandparents, they will have many chances to listen to the story about their grandparents from their parents or relatives. Secondly, the experiencs with personal involvements such as volunteer works or care for elderly people will also affect the image to elderly people.

The image to elderly people among young people and aging are influenced by their culture. Culture in the sociological sense refers to the social heritage of a society and standards of conduct that is transmitted between generation through socilization. It is learned behavior that defines for us what is proper and improper, right and wrong (Harris:1990, Murphy:1989). In each culture people have expectations about what is considered proper behavior at old ages such as the style of clothing and sex attitude. In order to understand these cultural variations, we must take the position to cultural relativism, which implies that all patterns of behavior should be analyzed in the cultural context in which they are found and not by the standards of another culture (Harris:1990).

Cowgill and Holmes stated that the status of the elderly declines as the degree of modernization in a society increases. Palmore and Manton correlated indicators of modernization with indicators of status in 31 countries with varying levels of economic development. Theirwork reveals that while modernization undermines the status of the elderly in its early stages, the trend may ﾒbottom outﾓ, and the status of the elderly may begin to improve in the advanced stages of modernization.(Harris:1990, Holmes and Holmes:1995). I would argue that the theory does not take into account the variations within societies in the status of the elderly by such factors as social class, sex, and racial groups (Harris:1990)

Holmes and Holmes maintains that there is the different image of the life cycle of elderly people between western country and non-western country. In most westen society, one becomes old at 65, regardless of oneﾕs biological condition. That is when most individuals are told to go home, retire and start collecting their pensions and social security. This system of determining the onset of old age is based on an arbitrary sum of year (65) and bears no relationship to the nature of the individualﾕs personality, vitality, biological condition, and mental acuity. Such a system is chronological. On the other hand, in non-western cultures, is functional system. A person is considered old when he or she is no longer able to be a fully productive, participating member of society. A person who has reached this stage does not necessarily command less respect, but special considerations are forthcoming from fellow societal members (1995).

However, the difference of the image to elderly people can not be necesarralily divided in each culture as Holmes and Holmes disccussed between western country and non-western country. A.G.E project which takes a team approach to cross-cultural data collection and analysis from 1982 to 1988 showed that the vision of a ﾒsuccessfulﾓ old aged differs for residents of each community of the AGE project sites in vastly different culture areas with major differences in economics, political integration and kinship. In addition, in each community there are more complex divisions of the image of a ﾒsuccessfulﾓ old aged which is built by the social system and by many intervening factors, such as values, peer groups, or residenttial stability. We can find systematic variation in the scale of the society in which each community is located (Holmes and Holmes:1995, Sokolovsky: 1995). Therefore, it is necesarry for us to focus on the pathways in each cultural backgrounds of the community including personal experiencs for the research about the image of elderly people among young people.

Objective of the study

This research project is aimed at addressing images, stereotypes and myths to elderly people held by young people. I also would like focus on the elements which the images are created in relation with the cultural differences and the personal backgrounds and experiences with elderly people. Because little research investigate the influence of personal backgournds to the images of elderly people, as a exploratory study, I will conduct this research in the university residence where I live. I believe this research will indicate the important factors that make images and steretypes to elderly people among young people and be valuable as a preliminary study.

Statement of Methods

I will use questionaire which include two parts of questions. In the first section, I will use a matrix question to know the image and stereotypes to eldelry people and aging among samples (see Appendix1). In this section there are various descriptions from four points of view, such as, aging, behaviour, dependency, status. In the second section, open-ended questions will ask about personal backgrunds which include age, sex, nationality, the relation with grandparents. I ask about personal experiences which care for elderly people as a family or work as volunteers in the community. As an exploratory study, I will use 27 students as a local sample of the residents where I live. Among 27 the nationality of non-Asian students includes Australian, New Zealander, British and American while that of Asian students includes Indian, Korean, Malaysian, Indonesian, Singaporian, Taiwanese, Thailander and Japanese. Also, the average age is 21.7 years old. Table 1 shows other details about the samples. There are more than 1000 international students who are studying at the University of Sydney. Therefore, the samples that I use are not random but still informative because more than 50% of the residents where I live are international students from various countries. The result of the questionarre will be analysed by SPSS program and show the relation between the cultural diversity and personal background in terms of the image to elderly ptople among young people in the University of Sydney as a preliminary study.

Finding

In this questionnaire I asked 27 respondents about the image of elderly people in both closed-ended and open-ended questions. The matrix questions, Q12~Q14, are related to ﾔagingﾕ while Q15~Q17 are related to ﾔbehaviorﾕ. Q18~Q21 are related to ﾕdependencyﾕ and Q22~Q24 are related to ﾔstatusﾕ. Open-ended questions mainly ask about the personal backgrounds and experiences in terms of elderly people.

Aging

The images about ﾔagingﾕ was relatively bad and negative on the whole among the 27 students. 26% of the participants strongly agreed and 52% of them agreed that people over 65 years old are elderly people. Further, 52% of the participants disagreed while 15% of them strongly disagreed that the majority of elderly people enjoy their life until the end of their life. These results show the negative image to aging among these students and one of the typical stereotypes that all people over 65 years old should be categorized as elderly without looking at the personal difference of aging. In terms of nationality and religion, the results did not show a clear cultural difference towards the image of ﾔagingﾕ.

Behaviour

41% of the participants strongly agreed and 19% of them agreed that elderly people are kind and gentle. Only Australian students disagreed with that statement. 67% of the participants disagree or strongly disagreed that elderly people should wear more fashionable clothing. Also, only 22% of the participants feel strange about the fact that elderly people are interest in or have capacity for sexual activity. The results of this section show that the majority of the 27 students have a positive images about elderly people in terms of 'Behavior'. Further, in this section the result did not a substantial cultureal difference between different natioanlities.

Dependency

19% of the participants had the image that elderly people tend to stay in institutions. More importantly, 52% of the students were uncertain about the answer.　Also, 85% of respondents strongly agreed or agreed that children should take care of elderly people when they become physically weak. All of the Asian students strongly agreed with that statement while one Australian student strongly agreed. On the other hand, all of the participants who disagreed or strongly disagreed with that statement are Australian students. All of the participants who strongly agreed or agreed that elderly people were happier to be with their children are Asian students except for a New Zealander student. Other non-Asian students are uncertain about the answer.

Status

22% of the respondents who strongly agreed or agreed that elderly people should retire from the political and business world are Asian students which includes Indians, Singaporians, Malaysians and Indonesians. Interestingly, all of non-Asian students strongly disagreed or disagreed with that statement except for one uncertain answer. Also, 41% of the respondents indicated that the majority of elderly people are lonely and are isolated from their families. These respondents are Asian students except for one New Zealander. 33% of the respondents are uncertain about the question.

In the open-ended questions, 52% of the respondents have lived with their grandparents or elderly people. These respondents are Asian students except for one Australian student. 44% of the respondents who have lived over 10 years with their grandparents are Asian students. Because of personal experiences and having lived with grandparents or elderly people for a long period, Asian students tend to agree that children should take care of elderly people when they become weak physically. Although Australian students and one U.S student have never lived with their grandparents, they see their grandparents relatively often. 52% of the students have cared for their grandparents or elderly people. Asian students have more concrete and direct experiences in caring for elderly people such as serving foods, bathing, taking them to hospitals compared with non-Asian students. Only 22% of the students have experienced doing volunteer work or part-time jobs involving elderly people. In terms of religion in each participant, I can not find any significant tendencies in the all questions.

Discussion

In the result of this research, the negative images of 'aging' and 'elderly' among 27 sample students are likely to reflect the images of 'aging' and 'elderly'among modern young people regardless of the nationality and religion. The negative images in the young generation would influence to the future social policy for elderly people because the negative images would cause young people negative attitudes and unconcern about social movements in terms of aged care. Actually, the indifference to the social policy for elderly people among the sample students was shown as a stereotype and a lack of knowledge about institutionalisation of elderly people in the survey result.

Though a literature review showed that the images of elderly people among young people were strongly influenced by mass media, the result of this survey indicated a distinctive influence to the images by the cultural differences. If you consider the fact that the development of media networks all over the world makes the TV programs and movies become less different between Asian and Non-Asian countries, a clear comparison of the idea about the family care and the household style between Asian and Non-Asian culture represented that the difference of the nationality and culture clearly affected the images and attitude to elderly people among young people.

Personal experiences and backgrounds with grandparents or elderly people were clearly divided by the cultural influences in this survey result. There has been a strong belief in Asian countries that children should live with and take care of elderly parents. In the present generation of Asian countries young people still keep this belief and are likely to put into practice in the future. On the contrary, young people in non-Asian countries are likely to be against this idea and will attempt to live independently from their family when they become the elderly. The clear difference of the tendency to the family style between Asian and non-Asian countries is likely to be reflected by the culture which personal experiences and backgrounds are created.

The negative images to social status of elderly people among Asian students in the result of questionnaire are very influencial and could be harmful to the future social policy for elderly people in Asian countries. Although I discussed Holmes and Holmesﾕs research about the different images of the life cycle of elderly people between western countries and non-western countries, the result of this questionnaire showed the opposite image of their research in both non-Asian (Western) country and Asian (non-Western) countries. While most of non-Asian developed countries has experienced ﾔagingﾕ society in the last twenty years, many Asian countries will increase the percentage of elderly people in the population and experience ﾔaging societyﾕ in the near future. If the negative images of the social status of elderly people are widespread among young people in Asian countries, the actual social status of elderly people in Asian countries will fall. Further, the decrease of the social status will disturb the empowerment to the society by elderly people that would be a key to solve ﾔagingﾕ problems in Asian countries.

Limitation of this research project / Recommendation for further research

Firstly, although the number of the sample of this research project was not enough to generalise the images of elderly people among young people, the survey result was valuable as a preliminary study because the analysis by SPSS could clearly showed the cultural differences of the images of elderly people between Asian students and non-Asian students. If I increase the sample size in the next survey, it would be possible for me to clarify the difference in each county with details.

Secondly, this survey result could not show the background of the cultural differences in terms of the images of elderly people among young people. Cultural differences especially about the family care and the ideal family style elderly people were outstanding in the survey result. However, the reasons of the cultural differences were not addressed in this research because of the limit of the sample and the number of the questions. In the future study, I should investigate the background of the cultural differences about family care and the ideal family style for elderly people with the combined research method including quantitative and qualitative method.

Thirdly, the influences by mass media to the images of elderly people among young people were not shown because I focused on the cultural issues in this research. Although I stated that the TV programs and movies become less different between Asian and Non-Asian countries, the power of mass media will still have the possibility to influence to the images of elderly people among young people. It would be interesting and worthwhile to investigate the cultural difference of the images of elderly people in mass media among different countries in the future research.

Reference

Aspin, L. J. (1994), The family : an Australian focus, 3rd ed, Longman Cheshire Melbourne.

Featherstone, Mike and Mike Hepworth (1990), ﾔImage of Agingﾕ in Ageing in society : an introduction to social gerontology ed by Bond, John, Peter Coleman, Sage Publications, London.

Gantz, Walter, Gartenberg, Howard M, Rainbow, Cindy K (1980), ﾔApproaching Invisibility: The Portrayal of the Elderly in Magazine Advertisementsﾕ, Journal of Communication, 30, 37-47.

Gerbner, George, Larry Gross, Nancy Signorielli and Michael Morgan (1980), ﾔAging with Television: Images on Television Drama and Cenceptions of Social Realityﾕ, Journal of Communication, 30, 37-47.

Harris, Diana K (1990), Sociology of aging, Edition 2nd ed, Harper & Row, New York.

Hilt, Michael L. (1992), ﾔTelevision News and Elderly Personsﾕ, Psychological Reports, 71, 123-126.

Holmes, Ellen Rhoads and Lowell D. Holmes (1995), Other Cultures, Elder Years: Second Edition, SAGE Publications, Thousand Oaks.

Huston, Aletha and John C. Wright (1982),ﾕEffects of Communications Media on Childrenﾕ in The Child: Development in a Social Context, ed by Claire B. Kopp and Joanne B. Krakow, Addison-Wesley, Reading

Minichiello, Victor, Loris Alexander, Deirdre Jones (1992), Gerontology : a multidisciplinary approach, Prentice Hall, Sydney.

Murphy F.Robert (1989), Cultural and Social Anthropology: An Overture, Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs.

Neuhaus, Ruby Hart a, End Robert Henry Neuhaus (1982), Successful aging, University Press of America, Lanham.

Perlmutter, Marion (1985), Adult Development and Aging: Second Edition, John Wiley & Sons, New York.

Sokolovsky, Jay (1997), The Cultural Context of Aging: Worldwide Perspectives: Second Edition, Bergin and Garvery, Westport.

Thursz, Daniel, Charlotte Nusberg, Johnnie Prather (1995), Empowering older people : an international approach, Auburn House, Westport.

Appendix: Question Sheet

Part 1: How far do you agree with the following statements about elderly people and aging.? Do you strongly agree (SA), agree (A), disagree (D), strongly disagree (SD), or uncertain (UN)? (Please circle one response on each line.)

People over 65 years old are elderly people.

The majority of elderly people enjoy their life until the end of their life.

After 65 years old, everyone goes steadily downhill physically.

Elderly people are kind and gentle.

Elderly people should wear more fashionable clothing.

It is strange that elderly people are interest in or have capacity for sexual activity.

More than 20% of elderly people stay in institutions such as nursing homes or hostels in your country.

Children should take care of elderly people when they become weak physically.

Young people have to give elderly people seats in public transports.

Elderly people are happier to live with their children.

Elderly people should retire from political and business world.

Elderly people know a great deal of life.

The majority of elderly people are lonely and are isolated from their families.

SA A D SD UN

1 2 3 4 5

1 2 3 4 5

1 2 3 4 5

1 2 3 4 5

1 2 3 4 5

1 2 3 4 5

1 2 3 4 5

1 2 3 4 5

1 2 3 4 5

1 2 3 4 5

1 2 3 4 5

1 2 3 4 5

1 2 3 4 5

　　

sfunaki@fpu.ac.jp