1. Civic Socialising
Older people and social interaction in local neighbourhood shops
Image permission: Microsoft
Joan Stewart
Colette Browning
Jane Sims

2. Image permission: Microsoft
Why investigate this?
There is a largely theoretical knowledge-base about the value of interactions with others who are not family or friends
(Blau, 2009, Fingerman, 2004, Fingerman, 2009, Kang, 1996)
Neighbourhood shops have been recognised as a places that enable social interaction
(Oldenburg, 1991, Macintyre, 2000, Smith, 2000, Scarpello, 2009, Horne, 1984)
Image permission: Microsoft

3. club
family
church
friends
neighbours
others?

4. Research approaches were largely: quantitative commonly employed:
How / Why ?
Appraisal of journal articles concerned with older people’s social ‘networks’ published between and 2011
Research approaches were largely:
quantitative
commonly employed:
- closed questions
- network mapping
- pre-determined typologies
- large non-purpose-collected data bases from which data were over interpreted

5. Common research themes / underlying ethos: Dependency
How / Why ?
Common research themes / underlying ethos:
Dependency
Risk of social deficit
Depression
Disease
Mortality

6. My approach
Interpretive and exploratory (classic grounded theory)
Focus on older people’s relationships with people other than their family or friends
A perspective that older people tend to be proactive and resilient, rather than dependent and despondent

7. Classic grounded theory1 Theoretical
MethodSample
Data
Site
Classic grounded theory1
Theoretical
Older shoppers av. age 79 (11) Shop-keepers (6)
Interviews
Observation
1Glaser, B. and Strauss, A
The Discovery of Grounded Theory. Aldine, Chicago.

9. Inductive / constant comparative method
Classic Grounded Theory
Inductive / constant comparative method
Aims to identify the participants’ main concern …
…develop succinct conceptual theory of how participants resolve their concern
1 Glaser, B. and Strauss, A
The Discovery of Grounded Theory. Aldine, Chicago.

10. Coding Identity Status Trust
‘Oh here comes the Smiths … you know (laughs) and its everybody in the shop knows us’
‘See in the big shopping centre they don’t really know you… you could be a chair’
‘It’s (the neighbourhood) not a grotty area (amusement) it’s the only way I can put it’
‘I feel if I’m buying something they (shopkeeper) should be polite to me’
‘People who go there all the time it’s a bonding experience …we all help each other because we know and we see each other’

11. Surveillance Censorship
‘That was the grocer yes he wanted a licence for liquor ...’
‘... but we already had a liquor shop see so we all howled that down’
‘My argument was .. if they allow there’s not room for two .. there’s only room for one and if they allowed another one in one business would go broke and then you’d have a chain reaction’

12. Category / Conceptual hypotheses
Identity
Status
Trust
Surveillance
Censorship
Codes
Category / Conceptual hypotheses
Authentication
Influence
Membership

13. ? Stages in the development of the conceptual theory 
Stage 1 2 3
Main concern
Conceptual theory
Theoretical hypotheses
Authentication
Influence
 Membership ?
Codes (concepts)
Trust 
Identity
Status
Surveillance
Not yet identified
Censorship
Choice

14. ‘I shop there because we’ve got (bold type denotes emphasis) to have a grocer shop’
‘If they don’t get the customer turnover they close up’
Researcher:
‘I got a sense that the people who live in this area keep those shops in business cause they want them to stay’
Participant: 
‘To stay, that’s right’
Choice Present time

15. Choice Future
‘We’ve got everything if we wanted it... say we don’t drive a car anymore you could go down here and almost get anything you want’
‘If they’re going to make us all have .. drivers’ tests and then they say well you’re not able to drive that will force people to look for the local shops and then you don’t have a choice and because through that .. it will continue on because we want those who want to be independent and not rely on relatives or whatever to drive you to shops if you want to be’

16. Main concern of the participants
Consolidation
Strengthening their community standing and maintaining the milieu of the local shops
= autonomy
now and in the future

17. Aim
Civic Socialising

18. Extension of the knowledge-base
Research
Policy and practice

19. Implications Policy and practice
‘Well you can go there even if you are on a walking frame you know or walking with a stick I mean you can make it that far from here’
‘And you see the thing is they do mending like I don’t have a machine anymore and my hands don’t work (shows hands) so if it’s a zip in here or ah well will you take this up’

20. Implications
Age Care Reform Package ‘Living Longer. Living Better’
‘provides older Australians with more choice, more control and easier access to a full range of services, where they want it and when they need it’

21. Independence or dependence?
Focus is on support service provision
Home delivery of goods or shopping services while an older person remains at home could isolate them
Older people who live in an unsafe environment or areas with multiple physical barriers are less likely to get out and therefore more prone to isolation, depression, reduced fitness and increased mobility problems
(World Health Organisation, 2012)

22. We need
Current structures and services to enable an ‘independence model of care’ are already overburdened or inadequate
(The Allen Consulting Group Care Coalition, 2007)

23. Enabling environments
We need
Enabling environments
Identify the ways that older people currently look after themselves

24. Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0.
Open Helsinki project 2010
A collaboration between Sitra and OK Do
World Design Capital 2012
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0.

25. Further research
Civic Socialising … Other neighbourhoods? Younger people? Different socioeconomic circumstances? Could a similar beneficial effect be gained if a local shop was introduced?