| As a typical programs within the domain of the contemporary Chinese eldercare, home- and community-based services for the elderly has been experimentally implemented in dozens of relatively urbanized and economically developed cities since 2003, which promotes this exploratory qualitative comparative study between Guangzhou and Nanjing..;Research questions encompass macro, mezzo, and micro levels, designating to the constructive paths of community's eldercare setting, the conceptualization and operationalization of home- and community-based services for the elderly, and the involvement of professional service concepts (participation, empowerment) into the concrete service delivery section. Hence, the main research findings are correspondingly based on three dimensions: at the macro level, an interactionism between "service setting---service program" has been inducted, demonstrating the bidirectional relationships between the macro and mezzo levels; at the mezzo level, not only does the researcher analyze the relationship between the service concept and the service practice, she also further points out the relationship between the service program and its service effectiveness, revealing the interactive possibilities between the mezzo and micro levels; at the micro level, an advocacy for the future institutional construction put forward by the professional service concepts aforementioned has also been inducted, depicting the impetus given to the macro institutional construction by the micro conceptual development. In a nutshell, this study is mainly devoted to the dimensional relationships which are readily accessible or potential, from which a conceptual framework steering the home- and community-based services for the elderly in contemporary urban China has been abstracted, together with corresponding social policy implications and practice suggestions as a consequences. |
