Miranda Leontowitsch

• PhD in Sociology
• Teamleader at City of Frankfurt/Main

Purpose The digital age requires people of all ages to communicate and organise their lives through digital technologies. The project EQualCare investigates how the growing population of older people living alone is managing this transition, how it shapes their (non-)digital social networks and what changes on a local level need to be brought about...

The ageing female body is particularly exposed to the social gaze. While it should remain fit and durable as well as attractive and desirable, there is the danger of ridicule through supposedly too youthful or too outlandish performance. Women’s clothing practices can conform to social expectations, can circumvent them, can actively protest against...

Zusammenfassung Die Digitalisierung aller Lebensbereiche transformiert das gesellschaftliche und soziale Miteinander. Es entstehen neue kulturelle Vorstellungen von Sorgebeziehungen, die ältere Menschen vor Herausforderungen stellen können. Diese gelten insbesondere für Alleinlebende im Alter, die seltener digitale Geräte benutzen und bei der Bewäl...

How can older adults participate equally in digitisation processes across Europe, and what inclusive research strategies are needed? This Zine summarizes findings from a “Research Innovation Lab on Ageing in a Digital Age”, funded by the VolkswagenStiftung, aiming to bring together 29 docs and postdocs anchored in 26 different disciplines coming fr...

Das partizipative Forschungsprojekt "Allein aber vernetzt? Digitale (Un)gleichheiten und soziale Netzwerke bei alleinlebenden Menschen" beschäftigte sich von 2021-2024 mit Alleinlebenden im Alter, ihren Beziehungsnetzwerken und der Frage welche Rolle digitale Geräte und die Digitalisierung aller Lebensbereiche in diesem Zusammenhang spielen. Durch...

Der vorliegende Beitrag beschreibt Ergebnisse des intergenerationellen Lernprojekts DigiGen. Im Modus des Miteinander-Lernens haben sich Jugendliche und ältere Menschen Wissen über Funktion und Einsatzmöglichkeiten von Künstlicher Intelligenz angeeignet. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass das gemeinschaftliche Arbeiten Partnerschaftlichkeit aber auch Alte...

This conceptual chapter considers the historicity of the 1960s and how it has rippled through into the construction of masculinities and gender relations in contemporary later life. With a particular focus on the generational unit sharing political and cultural rifts around what has been termed ‘1968’, it asks whether later life might constitute an...

Background: A central component of participatory research is the collaborative, nonhierarchical work of co-researchers and academic researchers. The development of a research question has a special importance as it entails different meanings for those involved. For academic researchers the research question is focussed on gaining knowledge and is...

Der vorliegende Beitrag beschreibt Ergebnisse des intergenerationellen Lernprojekts DigiGen. Im Modus des Miteinander-Lernens haben sich Jugendliche und ältere Menschen Wissen über Funktion und Einsatzmöglichkeiten von Künstlicher Intelligenz angeeignet. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass das gemeinschaftliche Arbeiten Partnerschaftlichkeit aber auch Alte...

The paper reports on research that investigates older men's care practices and how their caring for others opens new ways of exploring the intersections of aging, gender, and care work. Using the concept caring masculinities as a sensitizing concept, the onus is on exploring patterns of power, interdependence, and relationality within men's care pr...

The widespread use of mobile technologies has penetrated the lives of people across all age groups with the usage of smartphones and wearables appearing “natural” and without alternatives. The digitalisation of everyday life means that communication and negotiation of social and societal meanings are co-constructed by users and mobile technologies...

Residents of care homes across the globe are affected by the spread of SARS-CoV-2 as they have been identified as a high-risk group and because they experienced strict social isolation regulations during the first wave of the pandemic. Social isolation of frail older people is strongly associated with negative health outcomes. The aim of this resea...

Feministische Alternsforschung zeigt, dass die gesellschaftlichen und über den Lebenslauf eingeschliffenen geschlechtsspezifischen Rollenzuschreibungen im Alter fortwähren und einst berufstätige Frauen in der nachberuflichen und nachfamiliären Zeit sich, im Gegensatz zu Männern, weiterhin oder vermehrt mit Hausarbeit beschäftigen (Repetti und Calas...

Residents of care homes across the globe are affected by the spread of SARS-CoV-2 as they have been identified as a high-risk group and because they experienced strict social isolation regulations during the first wave of the pandemic. Social isolation of older people with poor physical and mental health is strongly associated with mental health pr...

Sexualität ist heute geprägt von Offenheit, Vielfalt und zahlreichen Wahlmöglichkeiten - aber auch von Wahlzwängen. Zunehmend melden sich jene zu Wort, die angesichts der Präsenz sexueller Pluralität ein Unbehagen empfinden. Die Beiträge des Bandes zeichnen die geradezu kämpferische Ausgangslage zwischen jenen nach, die für Offenheit plädieren, und...

Longevity and changes in family status are leading to a growing number of men living alone in later life. They are often considered an at risk group in terms of deprivation, suicide and mental health problems, a perspective that has informed community services. This paper reports on a study that set out to get a better understanding of this histori...

This chapter is an in-depth auto-ethnographic classroom reflection on the experience of teaching on the topic of men and masculinities in later life as part of an MA course in educational sciences in Germany. Unlike gender and diversity, aging and later life are relatively neglected topics in the curriculum of educational sciences in Germany. In li...

Der Beitrag geht der Frage nach, welche Spuren die Forderung Adornos nach einer Erziehung zur Mündigkeit bei jenen hinterlassen haben könnten, die sich besonders eng mit der Achtundsechziger-Bewegung verbunden fühlen, und inwieweit diese Spuren für das Alter von bildungstheoretischer Relevanz sind. Die Ausgangsthese ist zum einen, dass eine ‚genera...

This paper explores the lives of older men living alone in Frankfurt/Main, a medium-sized German city. The data is based on in-depth interviews with men aged 60+ who lived on their own for a variety of reasons and structured interviews with stake holders in social care, adult education and international cultural programmes. The inductive thematic a...

Background The challenges of delivering interventions for pregnant smokers have been poorly documented. Also, the process of promoting a physical activity intervention for pregnant smokers has not been previously recorded. This study describes the experiences of researchers conducting a randomised controlled trial of physical activity as an aid to...

here has been relatively little discussion of the effects of cultural and linguistic differences on communica- tion in consultations. Moreover, communication in community pharmacy is largely under-researched. This study explores interactions between pharma- cists, pharmacy assistants and patients conducted across cultural and linguistic barriers. W...

There is a well-rehearsed argument that we are fast approaching a digital divide, of users and non-users of the Internet (Wang et al., 2011). Moreover, the low use of the Internet by older people has been described as a ‘grey digital divide’ (Millward, 2003). This may be explained by the fact that many retired people today lived the majority of the...

There has been relatively little discussion of the effects of cultural and linguistic differences on communication in consultations. Moreover, communication in community pharmacy is largely under-researched. This study explores interactions between pharmacists, pharmacy assistants and patients conducted across cultural and linguistic barriers. We d...

Qualitative research into the experiences of older men is still a rarity. More generally, studies on ageing and gender have mostly addressed the experiences of women and gay men, while studies of masculinities have tended to focus on younger men, leaving issues of masculinity and gender in older, heterosexual men relatively under-researched. Parado...

Stroke is the leading cause of adult disability in the UK. Hypertension is the leading modifiable risk factor for stroke. There is increasing interest n home blood pressure monitors for self-monitoring, but no published research on the experiences of stroke patients who do self-monitor. To explore stroke patients' experiences of self-monitoring wit...

The last 40 years have witnessed substantial changes to the experience of later life. Health and life expectancy have improved and the emergence of a putative third age has allowed post-working life to move beyond being a residual social category to become an arena in which later life lifestyles can be constructed. Greater emphasis is now placed on...

Retirement and later life are taking on new forms and these may be related to what Ulrich Beck and others have referred to as the birth of the ‘quasi-subject’. This article addresses the ways in which retirement, for some, is actively constructed as a lifestyle option or choice. We present findings from a study based on 20 qualitative interviews wi...

The end of the ‘Golden Age’ of welfare capitalism in the 1970s was the prelude to a period of greater individualisation within societies and was accompanied by an increase in the importance of consumption as a way of organising social relations. During the same period there was also an expansion in the discourses aimed at enhancing the government o...

Ideas of participation and partnership in health care consultations have attracted increasing attention in recent years; however the consequences in terms of the necessary shifts in existing relationships are often overlooked. We examine how pharmacists work to maintain their professional expertise against the rise of health-care consumerism. We dr...

Objectives To assess the feasibility and acceptability of concordance in pharmacy practice through examination of communication between customers and pharmacists in two community pharmacies in consultations for over-the-counter medicines. Method A qualitative pilot study involving data drawn from six sources: audiotaped training session with all t...