Directory
FacultyFaculty
Click on their name to send an email.
Graham Rowles, Ph.D.
Professor
Room 303A, 900 South Limestone
Lexington, Kentucky 40536
Phone: 859-257-1450 x80145
Graham D. Rowles is Professor of Gerontology, Geography, Behavioral Science, Health Behavior, and Nursing and Director of the Graduate Center for Gerontology. His research focuses on the experience of aging in different environmental contexts. A central theme of this work is exploration, employing qualitative methodologies, of the changing relationships between elders and their environments with advancing age and the implications of these relationships for health and well-being. He has conducted in-depth ethnographic research with elderly populations in urban (inner city), rural (Appalachian), and nursing home environments. His publications include Prisoners of Space? Exploring the Geographical Experience of Older People, and four co-edited volumes, Aging and Milieu: Environmental Perspectives on Growing Old, Qualitative Gerontology, Long-term Care for the Rural Elderly, and Qualitative Gerontology: A Contemporary Perspective, in addition to more than 60 book chapters and articles. He is a Fellow of the Gerontological Society of America and the Association for Gerontology in Higher Education, is on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Gerontology (Social Sciences), and is president elect of the Southern Gerontological Society. Dr. Rowles has served on the West Virginia Commission on Aging Intra State Funding Formula Committee, on the Kentucky Division of Aging services Statewide Housing Initiative Steering Committee, on the Kentucky Legislative Research Commission on Aging and the Workforce, and as a consultant to the United States Veteran’s Administration on issues of deinstitutionalization. Ongoing research includes a study of institutional permeability in long-term care that involves longitudinal survey research in 60 nursing and assisted living facilities and in-depth ethnographic research in four of these facilities (funded by the Agency for healthcare Research and Quality).
Representative Recent Publications
Richardson, D.R., McCulloch, B.J., & Rowles, G.D. (2001). Homeostasis and complexity as integrative concepts in gerontological education. Educational Gerontology 27:8, 669-680.
Rowles, G.D. & Ravdal, H. (2002). Aging, place and meaning in the face of changing circumstances. In R. Weiss & S. Bass (Eds.), Challenges of the Third Age: Meaning and Purpose in Later Life (pp. 81-114). New York: Oxford University Press.
Rowles, G.D. & Schoenberg, N. (Eds.). (2002). Qualitative Gerontology: Contemporary Perspectives New York: Springer Publishing Company.
Rowles, G.D. (2003). “The meaning of place as a component of self.” In E.B. Crepeau, E.S. Cohn & B.A.B. Schell (Eds.), Willard and Spackman’s Occupational Therapy (10th Edition) (pp.111-119). Philadelphia: Lippincott, Williams & Wilkins.
Rowles, G.D. & High, D.M. (2003). Family involvement in nursing home facilities: A decision-making perspective. In P.B. Stafford (Ed.), Gray Areas: Ethnographic Encounters with Nursing Home Culture. (pp.173-201). Santa Fe: School of American Research Press.
Rowles, G.D. & Watkins, J.F. (2003). History, habit heart and hearth: On making spaces into places. In K.W. Schaie, H.W. Wahl, H. Mollenkopf & F. Oswald (Eds.), Aging Independently: Living Arrangements and Mobility. (pp.77-96). New York: Springer Publishing Company.
Rowles, G.D., Oswald, F., & Hunter, E.G. (2004). Interior living environments in old age. IN H.W. Wahl, R.J. Scheidt & P.G. Windley (Eds.), Aging in Contexts: Socio-Physical Environments. Annual Review of Gerontology and Geriatrics Volume 23 (pp. 167-194). New York: Spinger Publishing Company.
Gatz, J.L., Rowles, G.D., & Tyas, S.L. (2004). Health disparities in rural Appalachia. In N. Glasgow, L.W. Morton, & N. Johnson (Eds.), Critical Issues in Rural Health (pp.183-194). Ames: Iowa State Press.