Portland Community College | Portland, Oregon

Hello! Thank you for your interest in SOC 231 Sociology of Healthy Aging!

Though this online course is designated a Sociology course, it is sponsored by the Gerontology program and taught by a gerontologist.  As such, while the central focus of our explorations of health and aging is through a sociological lens -- looking at how social structures, contexts, and systems shape individual experiences --  this course is also gerontological in that aging is foregrounded and considered as a bio-psycho-social, life-long process. 

The central theme woven throughout this course is the life-course impact of systems of inequality and social determinants of health on individual well-being.  How individuals and particular groups of people (women, ethnic minorities, LGBTQ+, for example) experience aging is strongly shaped by the social contexts in which their lives unfold.  The aging body is as much a social phenomenon as it is a biophysical phenomenon; we cannot consider normal aging as well as aging-related changes in how the body functions and is experienced without considering who an individual is and how they are contextualized in the social world.  Health and aging processes are influenced by social structural and cultural factors, including age, abilities, nationality, race/ethnicity, social class, gender, sexual orientation, education, and religious and political beliefs.

This online course is designed to be a collaborative learning community, with a high level of student and instructor participation. In addition to required weekly reading and discussion assignments, there are two major learning projects in this course: A Personal Health Essay, due in week 6, and a capstone Final Project Essay, due in week 11. 

Questions? Please contact me!

Jenny Sasser, Ph.D.

jennifer.sasser1@pcc.edu

Gerontology Program