"A saida do fundo do poço" : representações sociais acerca da participação em atividades de lazer em grupos de terceira idade

AUTOR(ES)
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2002

RESUMO

The population over sixty-years-old currently presents the largest growth in relation to the total population of our country. The offer of services for this population increases as well as diversifies. The Third Age programs, social phenomena that emerged to assist this age group, encourage an active and healthy life, based mainly on leisure activities. The objective of this research is to study the social representations concerning the participation in leisure activities in Third Age groups. Thirteen individual interviews were accomplished with the co-operation of men and women over sixty-years-old in a Third Age. Coexistence Center. The discourses were analyzed starting from the technique of content analysis, followed by discussion based on the Theory of Social Representations. We identified that the "marks of old age", such as, solitude, disease and lack of activity, are the reasons elders participate in this kind of leisure activities in the Third Age Coexistence Center . Elders, when participate in those activities, come to belong to the "Third Age family" and find medicine and therapeutic assistance for the "marks of old age". The participation in leisure activities represents the "exit from rock-bottom", and brings meaning to the life of elders as well as a sense of rebirth. Gender and generation issues were present along the whole analysis of this study inasmuch as aged men and women were able to manifest different performance expectations regarding their social roles in adult life. The female role was associated to the domestic sphere of "family care" while the male role to the "family provider". For female elders, "the meaning of life" found after participating in leisure activities is related to the conquest of autonomy, freedom and learning. For male elders, "the meaning of life" comes from the revival of their previous working life conditions, that is, having commitments, schedules and a sense of usefulness

ASSUNTO(S)

gerontologia envelhecimento lazer

ACESSO AO ARTIGO

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