Uncovering and Challenging Ageism in a Continuing Care Retirement Community: An Ethnographic and Decolonizing Approach for Gerontological Social Work

Background and Purpose: Academic scholarship documents the pervasive and long-term harmful impact of ageism on the Grand Challenge in Social Work of health and longevity. While gerontological expertise may help, a core question answered in this project is how older adults might best identify and lead interventions within their own communities. A complication in this study was the pervasiveness of ageism that was observable through ongoing interaction and long-term fieldwork, and yet was overtly denied in response to direct questions during semi-structured interviews. Therefore, research methods and interview questions evolved into a decolonizing approach in which the research participants played a more direct role than in conventional gerontological social work research. After extensive time in the field, collecting data through participant observation, informal conversation, and semi-structured interviews, preliminary results were shared in the field site with research participants for their candid feedback on the research and a perceived research outcome of ageism. This reduced researcher bias by opening the project to local scrutiny and led to locally driven intervention.

Methods: Ageism as both a research question and intervention problem emerged during a larger ethnographic study of what it means to grow “old” in a Midwestern continuing care retirement community (CCRC) of 265 older adults residents (Mage 84, 95% white, 65% women) and 100 staff (49% white, 49% African-American/Black). Preliminary data collection began in December 2020, with formal data collection primarily during two phases (July - September 2021 and May - August 2022). 3 research visits (December 2021, March 2022 and early April 2022) enabled continuity of research contact and presentations. The initial anthropologist researcher was joined by a psychologist researcher in 2022 to improve rigor and inter-rater reliability. Formal data collection included several hundreds of hours of participant observation, semi-structured interviews with 84 residents (Mage 86.7, 100% White, 66% women) and 26 staff (Mage 56, 50% Black/African American, 65% women). Interviews were transcribed and thematically coded through content analysis.

Results: Although residents self- identified as privileged, they expressed challenges with aging and growing “old,” first more privately during interviews and later during public research discussion. Their answers suggested an internalized ageism; for example, desiring younger resident neighbors, avoiding association with less able-bodied or cognitively “intact” residents, hiding evidence of physical or cognitive decline, and enduring paternalistic care from staff and family. These results are consistent with previous CCRC research. Ageism as a term, however, was not well-known or reported as a frequent problem by residents or staff during interviews. Therefore, reframing ageism as a challenge of aging itself led to more productive public dialogue and resident-driven intervention to increase social support and inter-resident dialogue.

Conclusion and Implications. Engaging research participants directly by sharing academic theory and content from ageism alongside anonymized quotes and observations created a space for dialogue, reframing the problem as one of community support amidst age-related declines. Ethnographic field research using a decolonizing approach to research participation and expertise can lead to locally driven intervention to uncover and combat ageism among older adults living in retirement communities.