title: Baby Boomers in an active adult retirement community: comity interrupted.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  This article explores a clash between incoming Baby Boomers and older residents in an active adult retirement community (AARC). We examine issues of social identity and attitudes as these groups encounter each other.
  
  
  METHODS
  Data are drawn from a multiyear ethnographic study of social relations in senior housing. Research at this site included in-depth, open-ended interviews (47), field notes (25), and participant observation in the field (500 hr). Research team biweekly discussions and Atlas.ti software program facilitated analysis.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We begin with a poignant incident that has continued to engender feelings of rejection by elders with each retelling and suggests the power and prevalence of ageism in this AARC. We identify three pervasive themes: (a) social identity and image matter, (b) significant cultural and attitudinal differences exist between Boomers and older residents, and (c) shared age matters less than shared interests.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our data clearly show the operation of ageism in this community and an equating of being old with being sick. The conflict between these two age cohorts suggests that cohort consciousness among Boomers carries elements of age denial, shared by the older old. It also challenges the Third Age concept as a generational phenomenon.
authors.affiliation: Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Center for Aging Studies, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD 21050, USA. eroth@umbc.edu
authors.forename: Erin G
authors.initials: EG
authors.lastname: Roth
authors.forename: Lynn
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Keimig
authors.forename: Robert L
authors.initials: RL
authors.lastname: Rubinstein
authors.forename: Leslie
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Morgan
authors.forename: J Kevin
authors.initials: JK
authors.lastname: Eckert
authors.forename: Susan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Goldman
authors.forename: Amanda D
authors.initials: AD
authors.lastname: Peeples
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000375:Aging / Q000523:psychology; D000884:Anthropology, Cultural; D005260:Female; D016852:Housing for the Elderly; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011287:Prejudice; D012111:Residence Characteristics; D012919:Social Behavior; D012933:Social Identification; D057545:Social Stigma; D013240:Stereotyping