Discussion Groups with Older People: An Interface of Participatory Ageing and Social Change

This chapter describes discussion groups with older people who live in sheltered-housing, focusing on the participatory nature of the activity and elements of social change revealed among those who engage in it. Sheltered-housing for older people in the United Kingdom (UK), elsewhere often called assisted living, provides a supportive environment consisting of accommodation, typically flats or bungalows, and facilities including wardens and emergency safety alarms. Additional support and facilities can wary widely across individual sheltered-housing schemes, but nearly all schemes in the UK expect that residents can live independently. In the case discussed here, approximately seventy-five to eighty older adults ranging in age from seventy to over ninety years, the majority in their mid- to late eighties, live independently in a privately owned and managed sheltered-housing community in Norwich. Residents in this complex, whether self-funding or in receipt of social assistance, rent their accommodation.