Discusses effects on graduate sociology education of trends emphasizing quantitative methods and the positivist tradition at the expense of social theory and interpretive sociology. Argues that failure to develop sociology's interpretive tradition has allowed the style and intellectual creativity of sociological work to suffer. Urges greater…

With more rigorous and systematic integration of gerontological data with social and social psychological theory, more comprehensive explanations of life course phenomena would result. Moreover, the age variable would be considered by other sociologists as less of a control and more of a relevant variable in its own right. (Author)

Extends earlier work on aging as a process of exchange by focusing on the issue of exchange rates and how they are negotiated. Access to power resources declines with age, placing the old person in the position of negotiating from weakness. (Author)