Rappresentazioni sociali dell'invecchiamento tra psicologia sociale e letteratura

Abstract

Scopo del presente lavoro è proporre l'analisi di testi letterari per lo studio delle rappresentazioni sociali dell'invecchiamento. Dopo un'introduzione al tema, con cenni ai recenti sviluppi in termini di invecchiamento positivo e all'utilità di un maggiore interscambio tra psicologia sociale e letteratura, vengono presentati i risultati di analisi quali-quantitative e qualitative di due recenti opere italiane. Sia l'analisi delle corrispondenze, sia una lettura più qualitativa dei testi, restituiscono indicazioni preziose rispetto all'intento di co-costruire un modo di Invecchiare Bene. Assonanze e divergenze rispetto alla letteratura psico-sociale sull'invecchiamento contribuiscono ad una lettura critica e generativa dell'ultimo 'dono del tempo'.

Representações sociais do cuidado e da velhice no Brasil e Itália

“…Family is seen as a relevant element of emotional and physical support, and loneliness is undesirable. As previously found by other studies, contact with family is an important factor when facing aging (Contarello et al, 2011;Oliveira et al, 2012), especially for widowed people (Biasus et al, 2011) who fear that when their children leave home they will loosen their family ties (Veloz et al, 1999;Magnabosco-Martins et al, 2009).…”

“…Italy is one of the countries where the population is growing older rapidly, and it is the second country with the largest senior citizen population, with around 15 million people 60 years or older, and a strong effect of gender, for the life expectancy for men is 77.8 years, and for women is 83.7 (Contarello, Marini, Nencini, & Ricci, 2011). Data from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics [IBGE] indicate a rising tendency of the proportion of senior citizens in the Brazilian population, as a consequence of a process of demographic transitioning.…”

Stemming the “ageism pandemic”: A qualitative inquiry with older adults in residential care facilities during the Covid-19 outbreak

“…Our focus is on the meanings that individuals attribute to their social worlds, particularly to aging, and the psychosocial processes that generate these meanings when they communicate with one another (Contarello and Romaioli, 2020). These meanings have been accepted as a result of shared and practical forms of social knowledge that are capable of producing concrete effects in the situated reality in which they develop (Jodelet, 2009) and are in movement, following a non-linear path, being cyclical and context dependent (Castelo et al, 2023).…”

Migrations in postcolonial Italian literature: Quali-quantitative analysis in a social representation framework

“…By taking a psychosocial perspective, literary texts on migration become social artifacts through which firsthand experiences of migration become accessible. Once narrated and disseminated, such experiences can contribute substantially to the development and modification of SRs (Contarello et al, 2011). In this study, we give voice to migrant writers, specifically considering literary texts and autobiographies as valuable sources to analyze (Contarello and Volpato, 1995; Gergen, 1994).…”

“…Once narrated and disseminated, such experiences can contribute substantially to the development and modification of SRs (Contarello et al, 2011). In this study, we give voice to migrant writers, specifically considering literary texts and autobiographies as valuable sources to analyze (Contarello and Volpato, 1995; Gergen, 1994). Our aim is to underscore the relationship between literature and migration, and specifically to analyze the contribution of these migrant voices to the wider social discourse on migration.…”