THEORY, EXPLANATION, AND A 3RD-GENERATION OF THEORETICAL DEVELOPMENT IN SOCIAL GERONTOLOGY

Efforts at cumulative knowledge building in social gerontology have be en lax, judging from research articles published in journals between 1 990 and 1994. Too little attention has been paid to the cumulative dev elopment of theory; readers are left with many empirical generalizatio ns but underdeveloped explanations by which to interpret findings and build upon them in subsequent research. To assist future theory develo pment in social gerontology, we review seven theoretical perspectives referenced most frequently in recent journals: (1) social construction ist, (2) social exchange, (3) life course, (4) feminist, (5) age strat ification (age and society), (6) political economy of aging, and (7) c ritical theory. We suggest that, taken together, these represent a ''t hird generation'' of explanation in social gerontology, noting their d ebt to older and more established traditions in social science theory. me argue that authors and journal reviewers should place more emphasi s on theory development --,which means, most simply, the construction of explicit explanations in accounting for empirical findings -- if kn owledge development about social aspects of aging is to be cumulative, systematic, and incremental.