Editing Arlie Russell Hochschild (section)

=== Disengagement theory ===
In her earlier work, Hochschild critiqued the [[disengagement theory]] of aging. According to that theory, inevitably and universally, through disengagement, the individual experiences a social death before they experience physical death.<ref name="Hochschild 553">{{Cite journal |last=Hochschild |first=Arlie Russell |date=October 1975 |title=Disengagement Theory: A Critique and Proposal |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2094195 |journal=American Sociological Review |volume=40 |issue=5 |pages=553–569 |doi=10.2307/2094195 |issn=0003-1224 |jstor=2094195|url-access=subscription }}</ref> But in the low-income housing project she studied for her PhD Dissertation and later published as ''The Unexpected Community,'' she discovered among the lively group of elderly residents a culture of continued engagement. When they died, it seemed, it was "with their boots on."<ref name="Hochschild 553" /> Across the world, she suggests, individuals differ in their ideals of aging, in the feeling rules they apply to life, and may even differ in the very experience of death.<ref name="Hochschild 553" />