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Essay on Change of Identity in the Elderly

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I wanted to conduct a study concerning the fragmentation of identity, as I was particularly interested in issues of identity from the first year of my sociology course. I am specifically interested in Goffman's theories of mortification of the self as a result of being placed in total institutions and wish to base my research proposal mainly around his ideas presented in his book Asylums. Rather than studying mental institutions however, I am going to focus on residential homes for the elderly because I feel this will not be so ambitious and access will be much easier as I work part-time in Gorran Haven's elderly home. (Research into the elderly and their identity is scarce and therefore it may be interesting to conduct my …show more content…

We daily invent our identities through what we wear, what we eat, how we choose to spend our time. We also to a greater or lesser extent, see ourselves as members of a particular social class. In an institution there is a blurring of social divisions and choice is restricted by routines and regulations.

Having operationalised the concept of identity, my main aim is to examine the changes/loss of identity that occurs in the elderly as a result of being institutionalised.

Within this project, I intend to carry out interpretive primary research. I intend to carry out unstructured interviews as my main method along with complementary overt participant observation as a way of focusing my research question. I shall tell some of the group ie the staff that I shall be carrying out research based around a sociology project. This way I overcome mostly the issue of deceit however, it is likely that some of the residents may not fully understand the purpose of the interviews due to their age etc.

Using an opportunistic method I will then select a sample of five residents and use unstructured interviews to probe further into issues that I may have noticed whilst orientating my research.

Originally I proposed to use semi-structured interviews but having started to focus on my research proposal much more I now wish to use unstructured interviews as it will give

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