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acccidental gerontologists, early career researcher, Emerging Researchers in Ageing, ERA, gerontology careers, hidden gerontologists
We’re thinking a lot about career development in ERA at the moment. Careers in and outside academia will be the main focus of our pre-conference ‘Better Futures for Gerontologists’ on July 5 (the day before the main BSG conference). Thanks to everyone who has signed up, shared the link or offered to contribute – we are looking forward to seeing you. There are still spaces for any early career researchers who haven’t signed up yet – via our Eventbrite page.
According to the Thesis Whisperer (Inger Mewburn) all emerging researchers should be preparing for a life outside academia. She says: “The first step is to start consciously approaching your PhD like you won’t be an academic and pushing back on these explicit and implicit expectations”. Her advice is increasingly re-iterated in numerous forums.
However, for those who love research, more clarity is needed on the possibilities for worthwhile research outside a university environment. For some early career researchers, nowhere matches up to academia as the best place to create the new knowledge and to work as ‘scholar activists’ (translating research into action) or ‘pracademics’ (scholars who are practitioners in their field) or ‘honest brokers’ (scholars trusted to lay out all the issues). When they find themselves trapped in precarious job limbo they refuse to put on brave faces and stay silent about their structural disadvantage as casualised academic workers – there’s more on this and the recent strike action on the UCU (University and College Union) website.
Despite the gloomy outlook for some in academia, it’s not all doom and gloom in gerontology. Early career gerontologists come from all sorts of personal and professional backgrounds, and some are on their fifth career. Many seem to feel optimistic about future opportunities and find their work meaningful and worthwhile, amidst hope, desire, anxiety and uncertainty.
All credit to the BSG’s new Special Interest Group Ageing Business Society and its members for putting on events about ‘Alt-ac’ work. ‘Alt-ac’ is short for alternative-academic. It sounds like jargon, but is a nicer term than ‘careers outside academia’. It evokes the possibility of being ‘in-between’ or ‘peri’ or ‘para’ or ‘hybrid’ or ‘on the fringes’, rather than the starker ‘outside’ academia. It also draws attention to opportunities to transfer academic skills to a range of fields, such as monitoring, evaluation, impact, innovation and insights, in the business, policy and charity sectors.
There’s one unanswered question. What should early career researchers who want to put their gerontology research skills to good use call themselves? If we were in a lift and asked to explain what we do in 30 seconds (the famous ‘elevator pitch’ idea) I’m not sure how many of us would call ourselves gerontologists.
I personally wouldn’t. I say that I’m a researcher interested in ageing, later life and longevity and work in and outside academia – but it depends on who I’m talking to. I haven’t yet figured out a succinct explanation, like this one from an entrepreneur who says she has moved from ‘soliciting’ to ‘scrubbing’ (she has switched from working as a solicitor in the legal sector in the UK to running a cleaning business).
Some ERA members would call themselves gerontologists, or ‘Gerontologe’ in German. For instance, Christoph Heuser has worked as a geriatric nurse and run a care home in Germany, and won an award for an academic article while undertaking his doctoral research in Southampton. His experience as a practitioner coupled with his scholarship mean that he can wear the badge, and he does so with rightful pride.
In contrast, it seems that the term gerontologist can be a touchy subject in the UK. Perhaps it was ever thus, according to an Ageing Issues blogpost on the topic 10 years ago. The author reflected on her own ambivalence about the term, and on how many of her friends, family and colleagues thought gerontology was something to do with ‘geriatrics’ or ‘old people’.
Looking at the testimony in The Ageing of British Gerontology it seems that British academic experts on ageing often define their professional identity by their original discipline, and treat gerontology as a field or focus. Some seem to vary what they say depending on their current research. For instance, one participant says that she has variously described herself as an anthropologist working in cemeteries, a medical sociologist and a socio-legal researcher. Another says he has often called himself a sociologist of social policy and ageing. Some make creative use of the prefix ‘gero’ – for instance the scholars in the Socio-Gerontechnology Network.
Outside academia there doesn’t appear to be much usage, even though anyone could use it. This is because the word ‘gerontologist’ is not a protected title for which one needs an entry in a professional register (correct me if I’m wrong). For instance, companies could appoint ‘chief gerontology officers’ or ‘gero-officers’ or ‘geron-officers or even ‘geront-officers’. We might see more of this in future, although the idea of catering to an exclusive group of older consumers risks perpetuating the notion of ‘difference’, as discussed in a Centre for Ageing Better blog.
There’s one problem with this discussion. The question ‘do you call yourself a gerontologist’ focuses too narrowly on being ‘in or ‘out’ at one particular time in one particular place. Thinking about ‘accidental gerontologists’ is more useful because it captures the idea that many people might be ‘hidden gerontologists’ who are drawn towards and grow into gerontology, or stumble into it, or do it along with other work. ‘Accidental’ opens a space which lets us recognise our multiple identities and perspectives, and welcome in people who are on the same journey, but at a different stage. I first heard it at our ERA pre-conference last year and see that it has even been researched and codified (of course it has, we all love research!) For instance: one study identified four themes relating to gerontologist professional identity (GPI) – accidental, prescriptive, situational or none.
This analysis and other nuggets are on the Gerontological Society of America (GSA) website. They have some great material on ‘Gerontology careers outside of academia: Broadening your horizons’ and a ‘careers in ageing’ week every April. Reading through it all is such a useful reminder that different socio-cultural contexts are crucial when thinking about jobs – and of course The Gerontologist is the GSA’s journal.
Perhaps most useful of all regarding the word ‘gerontologist’ are the interviews for the GSA’s Women in Gerontology Legacy Programme. One of the questions was perfect – “at what stage in your career did you start to embrace the term gerontologist?” Some of the interviewees say that it was an accident of fate, and several mentioned the book ‘The Accidental Tourist’ by Anne Tyler. Others said that it was a circuitous route, or that they wear many hats. I was gripped by the warmth and soul that came through two short films in particular, those in which Toni Miles and Gail Sonnesso were interviewed by emerging researchers.
The upshot? It seems to be easier to use the word gerontologist in the USA, Germany and elsewhere, than the UK. But it’s OK to feel ambivalent in the UK and to use other words. The real issue is the flourishing of gerontology in all spheres, and the flourishing of gerontologists of all ages, in alliance with others, in order to challenge ageism and unequal opportunities for a good old age. As Pat Thane put it at the end of her book Old Age in English History “We need to work with a more complex and realistic picture of who older people are and of their roles in society and the economy than the simple, depressing, inaccurate image of burdensome dependency.”
I’m off to walk the dog and have a think about our next Gerontology and Tonic – our discussion forums for accidental gerontologists. Thanks to everyone who attends ERA events for such interesting discussions, and to ERA chair Heather Mulkey for pointing us towards the Gerontological Society of America, to outgoing ERA Chair Matthew Lariviere for introducing us to ‘gerontechnology’, to ERA treasurer Alison Benzimra for arranging ‘Alt-ac’ events, to ERA speaker Dinah Bennett for reminding us about elevator pitches, and to ERA committee member Christoph Heuser for inspiring this blogpost after an accidental Zoom chat.
This is very interesting: very positive despite the sense of insecurity. Forty years ago I was in the same situation: keen to identify with gerontology and to pursue a research-based career in ‘academe’. But in order to maintain an income I was dependent throughout on short-term contracts. I adopted a micawber-ish attitude – something will turn up – but twice I had to sign on the dole. I had just one contract – for three years – that was in a university but oriented to training rather than research in health service management with no reference to age. Not very satisfactory. Also I had a contract for a few months running a hospital discharge scheme for Age Concern. This in contrast was an invaluable experience.
Regarding the elevator dilemma, I called myself a gerontologist when engaging with academics, either gerontologists themselves or something else, and I have always been keen to promote the idea that gerontology is a discipline that approaches research and teaching in a distinctive way, drawing on a distinctive literature. Outside academe, I would introduce myself as a researcher and when pushed on the question of what I was researching, I tended to refer to understanding what makes people old and what it is to grow older.
I know things have changed and organising a career in gerontology is a very different challenge in 2022, but I suspect the basic issues in launching and sustaining a satisfying career remain much the same as they were a generation ago.
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Nice to be able to follow Bill in commenting on this interesting and well-judged piece. I doubt there’s anything definitive to say about the relationship between the standing of gerontology and the status of ageing and state policy in the UK. But there might be. I was struck by Andrew Marr’s recent report that the Queen turned down the offer of ‘Oldie of the Year’ award in 2021 on the grounds that ‘she believes you are as old as you feel’ and ‘does not believe she meets the relevant criteria to be able to accept’. There seems something peculiarly English about the monarch dissociating herself from her role at a point when significant parts of the commentariat predict that a constitutional crisis intrinsically related to age, succession and generational change will follow at her death. What you can be confident of, however, is the no-one will ask a gerontologist on to the Today programme to discuss the issue. There surely can’t be another field where punditry is so confidently detached from engaged scholarship. I don’t know what bearing such a conundrum has on career choices and research identities but I’d suggest the discussion would be both fruitful and frustrating.
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Such an excellent and thoughtful piece – thank you. I call myself a social gerontologist as I think its important to promote gerontology as a distinct way of “doing” academia, but then usually have to follow quizzical looks with “it means I study ageing but not the medicine or biology” or some similarly unsatisfactory ramble, often defining by what I don’t do rather than I do and then even more incoherently mentioning pensions, families, financing later life or social care as the elevator door opens and people leave the metaphorical space. I think we’ve moved on a bit – my very first radio interview the interviewer didn’t know the word gerontology and asked me how to pronounce it – I am guessing that was about 15 years ago – and that’s not a problem now. But I think the discussion in a couple of weeks in the Education Special Interest Group https://www.britishgerontology.org/DB/general-events/gerontological-education-a-step-too-far-for-undergraduates should be really interesting in this respect.
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Apologies for the delay. Ive just come across this thread. I’ve walked the dog already this morning thank you. Interesting that one of the favourite sessions at last Lancaster conference was where participants shared their pets online with each other. However, I digress as is my wont but Bill and John will be used to that.
I started work as a civil servant in the Inland revenue when I left school aged eighteen in the late nineteen sixties. Resigned after a year, which was possible at the time, then worked as a house father in a Childrens home with Community Service Volunteers for an allowance of ten shillings a week before leaving to be a bus conductor back home in Glasgow. Applied for an English university as a mature student (?) as my Scottish SCEs didn’t include a foreign language, a prerequisite for Scottish universities at the time. Secured a place at Lancaster and embarked on an English literature degree. Phonetics sounded the death knoll to that as my Glaswegian ear and accent could not deal with the demands of Received Pronunciation. A shift to a sociology and politics degree proved successful if not academically earth shattering.
So how does that explain the road to Gerontology.? I think there was a book called ‘Sociology and the Working class’ and my memory from that was the idea that expectations by educated working class school leavers were largely opportunistic lacking the inculcated career expectations and goals of middle class families. I also learned that I was a member of the submerged middle class in that one of my parents valued education! So I had a degree and no idea what to do. Basically ended up as a trainee social worker and then after another two year masters as a qualified one. I still remember my interview reply as to why I thought I’d make a social worker by saying I didn’t think I could come across any situations that I didn’t experience in my extended family. That proved largely true. But child care took no prisoners then or now. My post graduate degree was mental health oriented so a shift to that discipline was understandable after a further three years of child care being the only male qualified social worker in an inner city team.
A promotion to the role of area specialist in mental health, based at a district general hospital, saw me work very closely with a psychiatrist who covered older people with mental health problems. He was exceptional, with a caring but forensic approach. He brokered no dismissal or neglect of his patients due to the the prevalent labels of EMI or psycho geriatric. He was my reason for becoming a gerontologist. We were a good team. He was such a great role model;Robin Philpott.
I offer two of my favourite quotes/metaphors to round off why routes into being a gerontologist are necessarily varied:
“Theory without practice is sterile
Practice without theory is blind.”
I always had that attributed to Stalin?
“There are two kinds of people in the world, sayers and doers”.
I had that down as Ena Sharples. Younger readers ask you parents or grandparents who she was…
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Thank you to all of you for your interesting reflections.
Bill – I am sure that some of us, when asked what we are researching, will draw on your suggestion and say that ‘we seek to understand what makes people old and what it is to grow older’. That sounds much clearer than saying ‘I’m interested in ageing’.
John – I share your frustration about pundrity. Hopefully the UN Decade of Healthy Ageing will help raise the profile of engaged scholarship.
Debora – it’s thought-provoking thinking through exactly what one can say to engage undergraduates with gerontology.
Jim – what a wonderful life story!
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