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The social network approach in gerontological research.

The Social Network Approach in Gerontological Research This special issue is the outgrowth of a symposium on social networks and aging organized by Benjamin Cornwell and Christopher Marcum at the 2012 meeting of the Population Association of America. Our recognition of the great potential in marrying gerontology with social network analysis provided the impetus to solicit manuscripts on this topic. Among the 47 generally very good submissions to this issue we selected the eight papers that we considered the most innovative in using social network analysis to inform important concepts that lie at the heart of social gerontological inquiry. We also privileged articles that either directly or indirectly treated social networks as systems of interacting individuals over the more common ego-centered approach. Given the high quality of the submission pool, we wish that we could have published more papers, yet this surplus encouragingly suggests a healthy interest in social network application to gerontological themes. The main motivation behind this special issue is to highlight how social network analysis is being, or can be, used to contribute to long-running social–gerontological dialogs about important phenomena relating to health, family, community, isolation and engagement, and change. As the reader will find, social network analysis offers fruitful and exciting avenues for this line of research, and breathes new life into long-standing social–gerontological dialogs. And, to an extent that we did not anticipate when we first conceived of this special issue, the late-life context—with its unique social processes and challenges—pushes social network analysis itself into new territory, suggesting new directions for further development of network methods and concepts. It is difficult to think of an analytic framework that has had more of an impact, and in such short a time frame, throughout the social sciences as social network analysis. The social network approach (see Freeman, 2004; Scott, 1988; Wellman, 1983) brings with it a wide variety of powerful techniques and tools for studying key social phenomena that have concerned social scientists for over a century. Thanks to the widespread availability of easy-touse computer programs, accessible reference works (e.g., Wasserman & Faust, 1994), and transdisciplinary training programs, the network approach is playing a major role in shaping the social sciences in the 21st century. The power of the social network approach is found in its systematization of the study of existing social–structural concepts and processes, the discovery of new concepts, and its unparalleled opportunities for visualization. These developments have proven particularly useful in social gerontology. Indeed, one of the earliest explicit social network applications in any field was introduced by sociologists Wayne Thompson and Gordon Streib (Thompson & Streib, 1961), which appeared in an edited volume on aging that was compiled in 1961 by the gerontologist Robert Kleemeier. This is only appropriate, as social gerontologists’ level of concern over network-related phenomena has rivaled that of other fields. At least since Elaine Cumming and William Henry’s controversial but influential theory of social disengagement was published that same year (1961), social gerontologists have sought new ways to underscore the importance of the connection between social relations and late life. Social gerontologists understand that it is during periods when individuals face their most personal challenges that social networks seem to play their biggest role.