This article explores media discourse of ageing, taking the example of Poland and relating it to a broader discussion of ageing policy. The discourse in news magazines appears both to reflect and create attitudes towards older people, which in turn has implications for ageing policy. To reveal the nature of these attitudes, we use a method of attitudinal positioning. The study analyzes articles that appeared in the four largest Polish weekly opinion news magazines, in the 2004–2007 period. Various domains in the discourse of ageing are identified, yet only the family and market domains seem to be described in exclusively positive terms: the authors discuss the implications of this for ageing policy.

The aim of this article is to examine a meeting between discourses of gender and age at the macro-level, applying an intersectional research approach. The discussion of intersecting discourses is based on empirical material from Poland. It refers to the condition of social policy towards age and gender, in Poland, as well as the media discourse. The results of the study indicate that the intersection between discourses of age and gender involves discriminatory practices that result in an establishment of one-dimensional and pejorative subject positions. Two main subject positions of grandma and pensioner exemplify the main mechanism of a dynamic relationship between both discourses where the order implied by one discourse is strengthened at the expense of the other. The phenomenon of gendered age and aged gender reflects the key rule for understanding subject positions which pertain to categories of older women and older men.

The University of the Third Age (U3A) is an organization widely recognized for its achievements in the field of adult education. However, little research to date has addressed the position of the U3A in the context of the societal discourse on ageing. The aim of this study was to examine stories of ageing told by the U3A in Poland and to place these stories within the contemporary discourse of ageing. The study sought to reflect on the role of the U3A in providing an environment that encourages the growth of an ageing subject. The results of this study indicate that rather than resisting ageist discourses, the U3A simply rejects the idea of old age. The U3A characterizes its members as exceptional people who have nothing in common with old people outside of the U3A. Therefore, the U3A plays only a minor role in changing the social circumstances of old people in Poland

The main objective of this study was to examine the process of old age identity construction within a setting of social welfare work with old people. We sought to identify social welfare practices that construct and enforce certain old age identities. The empirical material analysed in this article is part of a study of a non-governmental organization in Poland. The method of analysis was inspired by nexus analysis, which analyses social actions through a historical and ethnographic perspective. The analysis focused on practices that produced, sustained and promoted particular old age identity. The results of this study show a complex process in which welfare professionals create the identities of preferred clients. The study shows that social welfare practice is often oriented toward imagined client identities that have little to do with real people.