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Constructing Familiarity and Managing the Self: Ways of Adapting to Life in Nursing and Residential Homes for Older People

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 November 2018

Jan Reed  and
Valerie Roskell Payton
Jan Reed
Affiliation:
Social Work and Education, University of Northumbria at Newcastle, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE4 7XA
Valerie Roskell Payton
Affiliation:
Centre for Health Services Research, 21 Claremont Place, University of Newcastle, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE2 4AA
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Abstract

This paper reports on the analysis of data collected in a study looking at older people moving into nursing and residential homes. Using life history methodology, participants are interviewed before and after arrival at homes in order to determine the process of adapting to their new environment. Initial data analysis indicates that this process requires extensive social activity on the part of the new resident, involving negotiation of complex social conventions. The discussion focuses on two themes which have been identified from the data: constructing familiarity whereby participants use sometimes tenuous knowledge of people and places to make the home seem less strange, and managing the self, whereby familiarity is used as a means of permitting social conversation to take place without leaving residents open to the dangers of being intrusive. These two themes have relevance for the way in which new residents can be introduced to homes, and the way in which the social skills of older people are viewed.

Keywords

Life HistoryNursing and Residential Homesrelocationqualitative data analysisadaptation strategies
Type
Research Article
Information
Ageing & Society , Volume 16 , Issue 5 , September 1996 , pp. 543 - 560
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

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