Abstract
This work aims to explore participation experiences in old age, and to reveal what individual strategies elderly people develop in order to engage in social life, what resources are available in communities and what socially constructed barriers to meaningful participation need to be addressed. The study does not exclusively focus on the ageing mainstream population, but draws particular attention on people with lifelong intellectual disabilities entering old age who appear to remain underrepresented in social research. The research tools encompass the collection of life histories and the involvement of a scientific advisory board consisting of elderly people with and without lifelong intellectual disabilities. Conducting ethically sound, participatory biographical research with vulnerable subjects implies important ethical and methodological challenges. First and foremost, it is the researcher's responsibility to carefully assess the risks and benefits on the part of the participants. Further, informed consent needs to be shaped as an on-going process of communication embedded in a research relationship of trust, equity and reciprocity. Against this background, the design of the present study entailed a person-centred use of the research tools that were constantly adjusted to the needs and interests as well as to the individual forms of interaction of every single research participant. The outcomes of this study are intended to offer new insights in the lived realities of elderly people, with particular attention to specific experiences lived at the intersection of lifelong intellectual disabilities, age and gender. Thus, this work aims to enrich sociological theories on social participation related to ageing and disabilities and to reveal related mandates arising for social work practice and social policy.