Call for Papers Journal of Aging Studies

A Special Issue on: Innovative Approaches to International Comparisons Issue Editors: Sheila M. Neysmith, University of Toronto; Jane Aronson, McMaster University Comparative research is an important avenue for highlighting how different policy, cultural and institutional forces affect people as they age. It has the capacity to unsettle assumptions about aging, social policies and social practices that operate within jurisdictions and, thus, to illuminate new possibilities. There is an existent literature that compares national differences on demographic characteristics, health and social policy approaches. However, less well developed and much-needed are debate and analysis of the dimensions that theories and models of comparison will need to address as globalization throws into question the relevancy of national boundaries as meaningful markers. This special issue of the Journal of Aging Studies welcomes scholarship that takes up the challenge of explicating dimensions important for informing changing paradigms of international comparisons that affect people as they age. Possible topics include but are not limited to: 1. The gap between theoretical models specifying dimensions for comparison and the state of the art of current research in a particular area; 2. A systematic review of prevailing comparative research in a field of aging, documenting the types of comparative research that are being done and assessing their strengths and weaknesses; 3. The challenges for designing comparative models in an era when immigration and refugee flows result in intra-national differences and in the emergence of transnational social realities and spaces; 4. Issues arising for theory and models when comparing the global north to the global south; 5. Findings from comparative research that authors have undertaken or are engaged in, and their reflections on the conceptual bases of their approaches to comparison. Contributions from the social, health and political sciences are encouraged. Deadline: The editors requests a 1,000-word extended abstract by February 18 2011. Selected authors will be invited to submit full manuscripts by October 31, 2011. Extended abstracts should be sent electronically to Sheila Neysmith at: [email protected] The Journal of Aging Studies features scholarly papers offering new interpretations that challenge existing theory and empirical work. Articles need not deal with the field of aging as a whole, but with any defensibly relevant topic pertinent to the aging experience and related to the broad concerns and subject matter of the social and behavioral sciences and the humanities. The journal emphasizes innovations and critique - new directions in general - regardless of theoretical or methodological orientation or academic discipline. Critical, empirical, or theoretical contributions are welcome.