Aging Literacies:
Training and Development Challenges for Faculty
Angela Crow
The Problems and Challenges of Studying Aging
The primary purpose of Chapter 2 is, in Crow’s words, to deliver an overview of “the challenges of investigating aging as a component of faculty research design” (p. 30). This Crow endeavors to accomplish with a review of literature from a number of aging-related areas as she makes passing mention of “new literacy training” (p. 40). Her first arena of inquiry is calendar or chronological age, where she notes that even if we the faculty “might not think of ourselves as old, if our students do, their perspective may influence what we risk in the classroom” (p. 34). She next turns her attention to the issue of identity formation, and here Crow is mostly concerned with the implications of external and internal notions of age. The chapter then transitions to a discussion of cohort and its importance in selecting a population with which to probe into aging. Crow moves on to a consideration of “life course studies,” which has to do with the trajectory of a particular life, and from there to a brief discussion of mortality concerns, both topics meant to calibrate her treatment of aging. In closing, Crow articulates the need for scholars to be attentive to multiple variables and address “macro levels in combination with the individual actions” (p. 46).