I Think You Are Talking about Something That Doesn't Have a Name: Using Social Work and Anthropology to Interpret Tensions in Culture and Aging in an Arab American Community

Background and Purpose: Older adults identifying as Arab American, or living in communities identified as such, reflect a subgroup of the growing aging population at risk for increased marginalization in a political climate that is sometimes hostile toward perceived differences. Much more research is needed on how to serve these groups, and urgently, as they expand to reflect greater percentages of the total population. This study uses data collected for a feasibility study on adult day programming in one Arab American community as a source for views on aging and culture.

 

Methods: Latent thematic analysis was used to inductively analyze data from 5 focus groups and 7 interviews that asked about adult day programming in a Midwestern, Arab American community. Focus groups included older adults, caregivers, and social service agency staff. Interviews included religious, community, and social service agency leaders who identify as and/or practice with Arab American older adults and caregivers locally. Focus groups and interviews were recorded and transcribed, then analyzed using thematic analysis. Literature from both social work and anthropology are used as a lens for discussing findings.

 

Findings: Analysis showed complexity in participants’ communication about aging and culture. Conversations about adult day programming reflected tensions and complications that suggest homogenous views of aging and culture are problematic. For instance, while many participants voiced a cultural tendency toward caring for older adults at home and keeping family together, some older adults also voiced that they themselves wanted to spend their final years in a facility to avoid impinging on their adult children.  Another participant succinctly described the problem of the term “multiculturalism” by noting that information important to personal identities such as language, nationality, ethnicity and religion are often nuanced under this this label: “I think you are talking about something that doesn’t have a name”. Findings support those of other scholars who have noted problems with utilizing the concept of “cultural competence” in helping professions like social work. Particularly, when it is based on homogenized constructions of culture.

 

Conclusions and Implications: Latent thematic analysis drawing on concepts from both social work and anthropology offers a novel interdisciplinary approach to studying aging and culture. These results are part of a much needed, deeper understanding of diverse views that may not easily conform to current constructs. Promoting equal opportunities for advancing long and productive lives in a polarized political climate necessitates richer analyses of tensions or contradictions in messages about aging that are often assumed to reflect cultural difference. These results support a need for rethinking of “cultural competence” as well as frequent, local qualitative studies on sameness and difference in assessing non Euro-American heritage persons. It suggests policy makers and professionals in social work and beyond should remain open to “something that doesn’t have a name”.