[What is at stake? 'Our future selves'!].

Abstract

The sociological questions in the gerontological research-plan 'Our future selves', developed in the USA for stimulating and co-ordinating the research in this field, are shortly summarized. It concerns demographic studies, age as dimension of the social structure, social-cultural comparative studies, social roles and social networks and the aging problems in different sectors of the society. After this summary some critical remarks are made and some points are mentioned that seem more or less fundamental in this field, namely the societal orientation on youth, the long term orientation that is needed because of the changing demographic structure, the problem of the 'social construction' of aging and the interdependency between the development of the sciences and characteristics of modern society (especially for the situation of old people).