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Vignette Methodology and Culture-Relevance: Lessons Learned through a Project on Successful Aging with Iranian Immigrants to Sweden

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Abstract

It is a well-known fact that cultural values play an important role in the construction of aging and old-age related understandings. This is why ethnogerontologists have tried to expand the gerontological imagination by arguing that research needs to become more culturally-relevant. Tapping into the values that people uphold and the understandings of aging that are shaped by them is a challenging endeavor. This is especially the case if one does not share the cultural background of the people whose values one is studying. The same holds true when one wants to shed light on understandings that mainstream social gerontology regards as deviations from the norm. It is after all relatively easy to “impose the Western template” under such circumstances. Vignette methodology has been found to be particularly useful when studying value-laden understandings. This is why it is an appropriate method to consider when designing research that aims to avoid the imposition of the Western template. This article focuses on the pros and cons of this methodology while discussing some of the lessons learned from a project that explored how the construct of successful aging is understood by a group of Iranian immigrants to Sweden. It will be argued that vignettes are particularly useful when trying to shed culturally-relevant light on aging and old age-related understandings.

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Notes

  1. According to Schoenberg and Ravdal (2000), their presentation of vignettes at a gerontological meeting back in 1997 received “a groundswell of interest and enthusiasm” (ibid: 72) just because there was — and still is — relatively little written on the subject. A systematic review of the literature shows that few gerontological studies have, in fact, used this particular data collection tool. Finch (1987), Mattiasson (1995), Rahman (1996) and Wolfson et al. (1993) seem to be the exception.

  2. The merits of vignettes from the perspective of culture variation have been discussed by Frijda and Jahoda (1969); Greenhalgh, Helman and Chowdhury (1998); Herskovits (1950); Kluckhohn (1960); Shafer and Park (1999) as well as Soydan and Stål (1994). However, the issue of culture-relevance has not been central to these discussions.

  3. The overall aim of the project that will be described in this article was the formulation and preliminary testing of a theoretical framework for studies of successful aging (see Torres 1999 and 2001b). The lack of culturally-relevant theoretical frameworks that lie at the very core of this debate was, in other words, addressed in this very project. However, more efforts are needed before we can say that we have rectified the lack of culture-relevance that exists in these fields.

  4. Parallels can be drawn with Nydegger’s (1981) description of social gerontology as a problem-oriented discipline. Related to this is the crisis mentality that characterizes social gerontology. In the words of Estes et al. (1992), this mentality “pressures to emphasize the immediate problem symptoms (e. g. “putting out fires”), as defined by the powerful (and) deflects attention from the processes of causation and the conceptualization of truly interesting questions that contribute to the furthering of the field” (ibid: 50). The result of the problem-oriented nature of our field “is an implicit, pervasive pressure to focus research on narrow, pre-defined problems” (Nydegger 1981: 295) or as Estes et al. (1992) would say, a persistence to formulate “distinctly instrumentalist and short-term application-oriented solutions” (ibid: 60). Ethnogerontologists’ disregard for postmodernism has also been discussed on the premise of this problem-orientation (e.g. Torres 2000).

  5. In this regard, Burton et al. (1992) alluded to the various scales measuring positive adjustment to old age that have been used in research with ethnic minority populations in the United States without having first analyzed what adjustment meant to the Black, Mexican-American, Asian-American, Puerto Rican, and Native American older people that have been studied.

  6. Comprehensive introductions to the theoretical advancement in gerontology that the field known as the anthropology of aging has in and by itself advanced can be found in the edited collections by Myerhoff and Simic´ (1978), Amoss and Harrell (1981), Fry (1981) and Rubinstein (1990) as well as in the chapter on the history of anthropology’s concern for aging and old age written by Holmes (1980) and the articles written by Keith (1980) and Fry (1980) and Climo (1992).

  7. Of interest is also that Burton et al. (1992) thought that culture-relevant endeavours would also “foster the design of culturally-relevant interventions for ethnic minority older people” (ibid: 132). In advocating a culturally-relevant agenda for ethnogerontology they had, in other words, both theoretical and practical contributions in mind.

  8. The issue of ‘Othering’ is also touched upon by Murphy, Esposito and Longino Jr. (1999) in their discussion of the implications of multiculturalism for gerontology, and by Torres (2006a) who has dissected the Swedish elderly care discourse on elderly migrants. Parallels can be drawn to Ladson-Billings (2000), who in her contribution to the Handbook of qualitative research points out that most science departs from the Euro-American epistemological tradition. According to her, this tradition determines how we in the West see the world and limits us from understanding that our points of references are not only not shared by all but also not necessarily the “only legitimate way to view the world” (ibid: 258).

  9. For the sake of those that question why such an ‘old’ theory was used, it seems necessary to note that other value theoreticians were considered before the decision to use Kluckhon & Stodtbeck’s work was made. Among them were: Bond (1988); Hofstede (1980); Inglehart (1977 and 1997); Ingelhart & Baker (2000); Rokeach (1968 and 1973); Schwartz (1994); Schwartz & Bilsky (1990) and Schwartz and Sagiv (1995). Space limitations prevent me from explaining why these potential sources of inspiration were deemed inappropriate for the task at hand. Suffice it to say that the reason Kluckhohn & Strodtbeck’s work was deemed to be a better point of departure for the theoretical framework mentioned here is that their theory was at a level of abstraction that was suitable for the study of understandings of successful aging. Their work was, in other words, about the type of abstract value orientations that could determine how we think about other understandings, as opposed to being about the differences between beliefs, attitudes and values and/or about the relationship between values and behaviour, which is what value theoreticians tend to be interested on.

  10. In this project, 12 of the 24 original vignettes that Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck (1961) created were used (3 for each of the 4 value orientations that the project used). These tap into orientations concerned with time, activity, relational and man’s relation to nature.

  11. This means that an additional 12 vignettes were created in order to tap into the understandings that each of the value orientations mentioned above were hypothesized (and preliminarily shown) to be related to (3 vignettes for each of the 4 angles from which understandings of successful aging studied were approached; i.e. time, activity, relational and man-nature).

  12. Related to the issue of standardization is the argument that vignettes are particularly useful in the study of decision- and judgment-making. In this respect, Alexander and Becker (1978) argue that “most people are not particularly insightful about the factors that enter their own judgment-making process/…/the systematic variation of characteristics in the vignette allows for a rather precise estimate of the effects of changes in combinations of variables as well as individual variables on corresponding changes in respondent attitude or judgment” (ibid: 95). A similar argument is posed by Finch (1987) who suggests that vignette methodology enables researchers to determine which of these variables brings about a specific type of answer.

  13. Research concerned with the suitability of different vignette techniques has found that —compared to written vignettes — video vignettes generate more reliable data when one is trying to mirror real life in a much more precise way (cf. Sleed et al. 2002).

  14. For a discussion regarding vignette development and validity see, for example, Flaskerud (1979) and Lanza (1988).

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Acknowledgements

The writing of this article was made possible through the FLARE-grant that the European Research on Aging Network awarded to the author. FLARE stands for Future Leaders of Aging Research in Europe. The Swedish FLARE-grant is financed by the Swedish Council for Working Life and Social Research. The author would like to express her gratitude to this funding organization.

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  1. National Institute for the Study of Aging and Later Life, Linköping University, Campus Norrköping, 601 74, Norrköping, Sweden

    Sandra Torres

  2. Department of Health, Care and Social Welfare, Mälardalen University, Vasteras, Sweden

    Sandra Torres

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Torres, S. Vignette Methodology and Culture-Relevance: Lessons Learned through a Project on Successful Aging with Iranian Immigrants to Sweden. J Cross Cult Gerontol 24, 93–114 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10823-009-9095-9

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