Routledge International Handbook of Participatory Approaches in Ageing Research

This Handbook presents established and innovative perspectives on involving older adults as co-creators in ageing research. It reorients research and policy toward more inclusive and adequate designs that capture the voices and needs of older adults.

The Handbook:

• introduces types of participatory approaches in ageing research;
• highlights key methodological aspects of these approaches;
• gives insights from projects across different cultural contexts and academic disciplines, showing ways in which older participants can be involved in co-designing different stages of the research cycle;
• examines key issues to consider when involving older participants at each step of the research process;
• includes the voices of older adults directly;
• draws out conclusions and points ways forward for future research.

This Handbook will be essential reading for researchers and students interested in the field of ageing and/ or participatory methods, as well as for those policy stakeholders in the fields of ageing and demographic change, social and public policy, or health and wellbeing who are interested in involving older adults in policy processes. It will be useful for third-sector advocacy organizations and international non-governmental and public agencies working either in citizen involvement/participation or the ageing sector.

Anna Urbaniak is a social sciences researcher with expertise in life-course transitions, the re/production of social inequalities across the life course, and participatory approaches in ageing research. She is a founder of PAAR: Research Network on Participatory Approaches in Ageing Research and a chair of COST Action CA22167 on Participatory Approaches with Older Adults (PAAR- net). She is also a co-chair of the Research Network on Ageing in Europe (European Sociological Association). She is working as a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Vienna (Austria) and Jagiellonian University (Poland), and as an Assistant Professor at Cracow University of Economics (Poland).

Anna Wanka is a sociologist and critical gerontologist interested in the social construction of age. Her areas of expertise comprise the social practices of un/doing age, life course transitions/retirement and the re/production of social inequalities across the life course, ageing and technologies, age-friendly cities and communities, mixed-methods, and participatory research. She is co-founder of PAAR: Research Network on Participatory Approaches in Ageing Research and a co-chair of COST Action CA22167 on Participatory Approaches with Older Adults (PAAR- net). She is working as a research group leader at Goethe University Frankfurt/Main, Germany.