A Social Work Perspective on How Ageist Language, Discourses and Understandings Negatively Frame Older People and Why Taking a Critical Social Work Stance Is Essential

As populations age around the globe, social workers will have more and more contact with older people, particularly in the practice fields of health care and social care services. Language and dominant discourses associated with older people and ageing in politics, in the media and other institutions are often underpinned by ageism and fail to convey accurate accounts and understandings of ageing issues. In response to how this pervasive ageism plays out in health care and social care services practice settings, this paper argues that all social workers urgently ought to move beyond conventional social work, which is most dominant in practice, and embrace more aspects of critical social work in relation to ageing societies and working with older people. This is necessary to identify, critique and challenge ill-informed and oppressive language, labels and discourses used to describe older people and explain ageing issues. Embedding gerontological social work as core learning in social work education is essential to social work achieving what is required to achieve these goals.