Abstract
Previous studies have focussed on the meaning of old age as conducted from the quantitative approach. Thus the primary emphasis of this article is the perception of elderly individuals who resided in Pondok Jeram, an alternative congregated living arrangement which was established for the propagation of Islamic teaching and learning on old age. The employment of abductive research strategy based on idealist ontology and social constructionist epistemology gave the perennial importance to the elderly’s point of views. The use of in-depth interviews yielded social actors’ meaning and interpretation of old age in their everyday experience. The findings revealed 7 important themes in relation to understanding old age; old age as a natural life cycle, old age is normal, feeling about old age, old age and physical changes, old age and religion, old age and health and old age and pondok. Finally, the interpretations of elderly residents’ meaning of old age would give a clearer understanding of their needs from the local socio-cultural environment for future policy planning and implementation concerning them. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n4s3p32
Highlights
The focus of the article is to understand the concept of old age from the perspective of the elderly residents in Jeram Pondok, Kuala Selangor
This study shows that how an elderly person perceived old age was very much related to how active they were
He started as a follower and gradually he became one of the teaching staff and an elderly resident in the pondok
Summary
The focus of the article is to understand the concept of old age from the perspective of the elderly residents in Jeram Pondok, Kuala Selangor. Edward (1953) suggested in the earlier use of this sociological concept of old age, as it was based on functional definition was to avoid confusion This use is more of a convenient indicator rather than a true expression of reality (Markides & Mindel 1987: 12-13). In viewing old age, the elderly always compared their position to their age mates based on health For those who were in their sixties, they were still concerned about youthful appearance, those who were in their seventies; they began to view themselves as ageing. Covan (2005) showed that religious belief had been linked to well-being among these elderly groups This confirmed that the chronological age alone was not an enough indicator in studying the elderly and other factors like health and religion could display heterogeneous perception of old age
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