Care in practice. Social class and family strategies in the care of elderly people with severe dependencies

Abstract

This research aims to analyze the different family strategies in elderly people with severe dependencies. To do so we focus in the different tensions, determinants and justifications that are managed in each of the care’s possible options, and how these vary across social classes. Ethnography methodology is used, conducting depth interviews and systematic observations in four family’s households, each of them belonging to a particular social class. This work argues that the meaning associated to “good care” varies in relation with the situation and the social class. While upper-class families justify the goodness of the care’s commodification, in lower-class families the discourses about what care’s strategy implement is indeterminate and oscillating. Exceptional situations like the illness of the main caregiver would justify the use of other strategies such as the elderly residency.