Intergenerational Communities Research Articles

Defiance, Resilience, And (Mis)Representation


 
 
 
 There is an abundance of research that reveals our society’s stereotyping of older adults and the negative cultural images of the process of ageing (DeMuth, 2004; Fealy et al., 2012). These stereotypes–disinformations–that are attached to older individuals suggest that as we age, we enter a stage of stagnation, decline, and decreased resilience. However, there is substantial evidence that as people age, they still maintain considerable adaptability, mental resilience, and overall well being (Friedan, 1993, as cited in DeMuth, 2004). Rise, Shine, Sing! is a weekly online research-creation program that investigates how music, dance, and theatre can affect and contribute to the resilience and wellbeing of older adults. Through our work as research assistants on this project, we have observed the leaps and limitations of music theatre participants within our research community. Drawing from our experiences with the program, and reflecting upon our positionality in our research contexts, we will explore the ways in which misinformation and disinformation affect older individuals and the limitations placed on them by both society and themselves. Specifically, we will confront the stereotypes associated with older adulthood, the ageism present in the theatre industry, and resilience through the ageing process. At the same time, we will examine the ways that intergenerational communities, the importance of pursuing new passions, and creating opportunities to be expressive can enhance the lives and PERMA wellbeing of older adults. Our collective research and work with Rise, Shine, Sing! suggests that older adulthood can be a time of vibrancy, creativity, and increased agency. 
 
 
 

북한강유역 미사리유형 취락의 입지환경 변화 연구

This study reviewed the changes of the settlements in the Misari Assemblage in Bukhan River and Soyang River, focusing on the Chuncheon basin, and investigated the reasons for the changes in such locations. In Bukhan River basin, the Doldae Mun pottery show three stages of change. Approximately 3,100 BP as the starting point, temporal changes are shown from appearance, development, and decline. These changes can also be found from the locations. In Stage 1 of the settlements of the Misari Assemblage in Bukhan River basin, the Misari Assemblage residential area is created for the first time in Cheoncheon-ri area and the southwestern part of Jungdo-dong. This area takes the form of a small-scale settlement with mid- to large-sized rectangular residential sites and small-sized square residential sites. In Stage 2, the numbers of midto large-sized rectangular residential sites and the small-sized square residential sites, which are the common house types of the intergenerational communities, increase. In Jungdo site, residential areas are first created in areas B1 and D1. Afterwards, residential areas gradually spread to the eastern part (E1) and northern parts (D2 and 3). Ultimately, with more residential areas in other settlement areas, it is possible to identify large-scale settlement types. In Stage 3, the scale of the settlements decreases. In Jungdo area, residential areas are created in some parts in the northwest, and the residential areas move to nearby Geumsan-ri, Hyeonam-ri, or Geunhwa-dong areas. The changes in the Doldae Mun pottery follow the changes in residential sites. This is closely related to climate change. That is, with climate change occurring in certain areas starting from the Bronze Age, the landscape of the Chuncheon basin changed as well, which led to the changes in the locations of settlements. The settlements of the Misari Assemblage that was constructed on the Chuncheon basin, a flat land, was mostly focused in the stream areas of Bukhan River and Soyang River, which were the areas that have easy access to rivers. Then, when the river started to flow with rising temperatures, the locations became more diverse as there were more areas where the river could be accessed. In Stage 3, with the falling temperatures, settlements of the Misari Assemblage return to the streams of Bukhan River and Soyang River. However, they are more focused around the stable grounds located in the mid to upper streams of Bukhan River. The location of settlements of the Misari Assemblage in Stage 3 changes in landscape to the locations of Stage 1. The settlements also tend to go back to their original locations. However, the Yeoksam-dong Assemblage appears at Bukhan River basin. Therefore, it is judged that the terrace terrains of Udu-dong and Cheonjeon-ri and the river island areas of Jungdo-dong were no longer accessible. Later, the Chuncheon basin changes to become the settlement area during the early and mid Bronze Age periods.

Developing the Intergenerational Community Survey for older adults: Assessing neighborhood environments, social and physical activities, and health

Many survey instruments have been developed to assess neighborhood environments for their impacts on people's health and daily activities. However, no instruments are available for capturing social interactions with different age groups among older populations. This study introduces a four-phase process of developing a comprehensive Intergenerational Community Survey (ICS) covering six domains: (1) physical activities, walking, and sedentary activities; (2) mental health and quality of life; (3) social activities (e.g. intergenerational and peer interactions) in and outside the neighborhood; (4) neighborhood environments (e.g. safety, streets and sidewalks); (5) supportive services or programs (e.g. intergenerational programs, transportation services); and (6) personal characteristics. Test-retest reliability assessments among 38 community-dwelling older adults (aged 65+) showed fair to good reliability results. ICS can serve as a useful tool to facilitate future research on intergenerational communities and interactions for older adults.

The role of community environments in older adults' intergenerational and peer social interactions

Intergenerational communities are important for facilitating social interactions across different generations and supporting aging in place. This study explores ways of measuring intergenerational communities in terms of their social and physical environments, as well as investigates personal and environmental predictors of older adults' intergenerational and peer interactions in the neighborhood. We analyzed cross-sectional survey data from 455 Austin residents 65 years or older and objective measures of their community environments. Multivariable logistic regressions were performed to investigate correlates of older adults' weekly interactions with others in four different age groups (children, younger generations, other older adults, and people of all ages). Significant correlates represented three domains: personal characteristics, social environments, and physical environments. Our findings further suggested differences in the predictors of intergenerational vs. peer interactions among older adults. This study provides empirical evidence supporting the significant roles of community environments in promoting older adults' intergenerational and other social interactions. Continued efforts are needed to better understand the full range of social and physical environmental supports to promote intergenerational interactions, which can contribute to promoting healthy living for people of all ages and reducing intergenerational conflicts.

Defiant Joy and Care-Based Solidarity in Puerto Rican Theatre

On 7 September 2017, Hurricane Irma made landfall on Puerto Rico. Two weeks later, Hurricane Maria devastated the island. Recovery efforts and repairs were still underway by the time the island was rocked by a series of earthquakes in early 2020. By 15 March 2020, a lockdown was instituted due to the COVID-19 global pandemic. Mass migration, austerity measures, neoliberal privatization and a perpetual battle against colonialism have exacerbated these traumas. Repeated disaster, both natural and unnatural, leave Puerto Rican communities in a continuous loop of preparing and recovering. In the wake of disaster, the San Juan-based theatre collective Y no había luz (f. 2005), has functioned as both survivor and witness, enduring traumatic events themselves even as they assemble to assist those in need. In this article, I draw upon fieldwork I conducted in San Juan, Puerto Rico, as well as Imani Perry’s concept of defiant joy to argue that Y no había luz forms a legacy of solidarity that persists through the mobilization of defiant joy in disaster response. Moreover, in collaborating with each other and with intergenerational communities, Y no había luz creates multidisciplinary performances of care that are characterized by joy, whimsy, and celebration. In multiple iterations of familiar narratives, the collective activates afterlives for stories that extend beyond performance to give community participants access to reenact, reshape, and re-remember events. These collective experiences produce a solidarity model of care and a shared understanding among and between artists and communities. Through acts of defiant joy, Y no había luz produces mutually beneficial and sustainable expressions of care-based solidarity in virtual and in-person spaces.

Contemporary integrated community planning: mixed-age, sustainability and disaster-resilient approaches

In recent years, conventional concepts of social reform planning for sustainable, safe and disaster-resilient communities have continuously driven the thought and practice of community planning and management; furthermore, environmental safety has become the common foundation of these visionary community models. Additionally, low birth rates and aging populations have become common social problems in numerous developed countries. This study integrated the design and planning of sustainable, disaster-resilient and intergenerational collective communities to develop factors and models of an intergenerational community. Moreover, this study constructed evaluation indicators for intergenerational communities under a safety basis, which were used as the foundation for planning and designing strategies. The system of intergenerational disaster-resilient collective community planning indicators covers 5 dimensions and 26 indicators, which focuses primarily on the establishment of community safety mechanisms and physical and mental health care for residents, including intergenerational community interactivity, provision of education and employment opportunities, provision of health and medical services, along with environmental and ecological conservation and maintenance management. By reconstructing the communication and economic model of communities as a whole, establishing community disaster management awareness and mechanisms on this basis is essential to facilitate their progress toward sustainable development. Through this framework of indicators, we aim to provide communities with a reference for future transformations in response to societal shifts.

Diversity in Health Informatics: Mentoring and Leadership.

Diversity, inclusion and interdisciplinary collaboration are drivers for healthcare innovation and adoption of new, technology-mediated services. The importance of diversity has been highlighted by the United Nations' in SDG5 "Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls", to drive adoption of social and digital innovation. Women play an instrumental role in health care and are in position to bring about significant changes to support ongoing digitalization and transformation. At the same time, women are underrepresented in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM). To some extent, the same holds for health care informatics. This paper sums up input to strategies for peer mentoring to ensure diversity in health informatics, to target systemic inequalities and build sustainable, intergenerational communities, improve digital health literacy and build capacity in digital health without losing the human touch.

Negotiating Care

AbstractThis article explores the creation of the Over 60 Health Clinic in Berkeley, California, during the mid-1970s. Developed by a local network of the activist group Gray Panthers, the clinic offered screening and preventive care to elderly clients and was intended to serve as a catalyst for broader health reform. Drawing on the proposals, contracts, and reports that structured the clinic’s early operations, the article traces the clinic’s efforts to imagine new modes of care, even within the constraints of collaboration with bureaucratic public agencies. In so doing, the East Bay Gray Panthers articulated a distinct understanding of “healthy aging” as relational and contingent on the maintenance of existing intergenerational communities.

Assessing Age-Friendliness in Higher Education: Introducing the Inventory and Campus Climate Surveys

The establishment of the Age-Friendly University (AFU) network and adoption of the 10 principles by institutions of higher education, was a major advance in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal of promoting healthy and active aging through opportunities for intergenerational communities. AGHE endorsed the principles in 2016, since then over 60 institutions have joined the global network. Tools are needed to identify benchmarks that institutions can use to assess progress toward realizing the AFU principles on their own campuses. This symposium shares work done at the University of Massachusetts Boston, to develop and refine the AFU Inventory and Campus Climate Surveys (ICCS), a survey-based assessment instrument (developed from a prior pilot study in 2018) based on the premise that it is necessary to assess both the institution’s actual age-friendly practices and its perceived age-friendliness or campus climate. In August, 2019, the University of Massachusetts President’s office endorsed the 10 principles for the entire UMass system of 5 campuses, presenting an opportunity to assess a multi-campus system. To date, we have surveyed UMass Boston, UMass Lowell, UMass Dartmouth and UMass Medical (n=2,704). Testing and refinement of the AFU ICCS will contribute to both short- and long-term recommendations to assist in strategic planning by higher education institutions. Whitbourne will present the Inventory reporting tool. Bowen will present the Climate Survey. Gautam and Revell will describe the AFU work at UMass Lowell and UMass Dartmouth respectively and the use of the assessment tools on their campuses; Morrow-Howell will serve as Discussant.

Community Environments That Promote Intergenerational Interactions vs. Walking Among Older Adults.

Background: Intergenerational interactions and walking are two of the most beneficial forms of activities for older adults. As older adults spend most of their time at or near home, the characteristics of the proximate residential environments are particularly important for supporting those activities. This study aims to (1) explore places used for various social interactions older adults engage in, (2) examine specific neighborhood environmental features associated with intergenerational interactions, and (3) compare similarities and differences in environmental correlates of intergenerational interactions vs. walking.Methods: This cross-sectional study analyzed self-reported survey data from 455 community-dwelling adults aged 65+ from Austin, Texas, as well as Geographic Information System (GIS) measures capturing the neighborhood environment around each participant's home. Descriptive statistics were used for Aim 1. Multivariable binary logistic models were used for Aims 2 and 3, to identify environmental variables predicting the odds of participating in intergenerational interactions (with children 1+ times/week, and with children, teenagers, or adults 1+ times/week) in one's neighborhood, as well as walking 1+ times/week for transportation or recreation purposes.Results: Participants had a mean age of 73 years, and were primarily female (72.1%) and non-Hispanic white (72.8%). Older adults interacted frequently with adults (79.2%, 1+ times/week) and other older adults (66.9%) in their neighborhood, while less frequently with children (28.0%) and teenagers (21.9%). Recreational walking (73.3%, 1+ times/week) was more popular for older adults than transportation walking (43.8%). Multivariable analyses showed that neighborhood perceptions, transportation infrastructure, land uses, land covers, population densities, development activities, and composite scores were significant predictors of intergenerational activities. Both similarities and differences were found in terms of the neighborhood environmental factors associated with intergenerational interactions vs. walking although differences were more evident in the domains of land covers, development activities, and composite scores.Conclusions: Given the significant health benefits, promoting intergenerational interactions and walking among older adults should be a national/global responsibility. Further work is needed to improve our understanding of the specific social and physical environmental facilitators as well as barriers to creating intergenerational communities that can support healthy living of all generations.

Intergenerational communities: A systematic literature review of intergenerational interactions and older adults' health-related outcomes.

Population aging is a major societal challenge that the US and many other countries are facing. The roles of intergenerational interactions are being increasingly recognized as important factors influencing health and well-being of older adults and other generations. This systematic review paper provides a critical assessment of the current state of knowledge about the impacts of intergenerational activities on older adults' health-related outcomes. Literature searches were conducted in October 2019 within MEDLINE, SocIndex, APA PsycInfo, and CINAHL Complete, using a pre-developed list of relevant keywords. Identified papers were reviewed and selected based on the following eligibility criteria: (1) older adults aged 50 or over as the study population, (2) nonfamily member intergenerational interactions as independent variables, (3) older adults' health-related outcomes as dependent variables, and (4) empirical and quantitative studies performed in the US and written in English. A total of 24 out of 22,674 identified articles met these eligibility criteria. All of the 24 studies focused on evaluating intergenerational programs and their intervention effects. No studies addressed community or environmental interventions/effects. Program-based intergenerational interactions showed positive associations with older adults' physical health, psychosocial health (e.g. reduced depression), cognitive function, social relationships, and well-being/quality of life. Moreover, engagement in intergenerational activities was linked with increased physical and social activities. This review showed solid evidence supporting the significance of program-based interventions in promoting intergenerational activities and associated health benefits. Significant knowledge gaps are also found resulting from the lack of studies examining the roles of physical environmental interventions/factors, diverse types of intergenerational interactions, and location-driven activities. Such studies can contribute to a better understanding of the specific attributes, both program-based and place-based supports, of the community environment that can promote intergenerational interactions and healthy aging in place.

A PHENOMENOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE OF INTERGENERATIONAL ENGAGEMENT, SOCIAL ISOLATION, AND AGE SEGREGATION

Intergenerational engagement and its impact on social isolation is an area of critical importance within the broader topic of healthy aging. This phenomenological study involved individual qualitative interviews with older adults (60+ years of age without cognitive impairment). Participants (N=9) were recruited using fliers and referrals from assisted living staff. Purposive sampling was utilized, and researchers attempted to diversify the sample by selecting participants from multiple settings and cultural backgrounds. This study was guided by two overarching research aims: 1) To understand the nature of intergenerational engagement and its impact on reducing social isolation, and 2) To understand how intergenerational experiences have changed over time. Interviews were conducted by the study PI, lasted 60-minutes and took place in participants’ homes or agreed-upon public settings. Two researchers (the PI and an MSW intern) participated in the data collection and analysis process, which helped strengthen inter-coder reliability. Two important themes emerged from the data. First, participants often described intergenerational engagement as stimulating and stated that they enjoy feeling “younger” or “childlike” when engaging with younger generations. Second, participants reflected that intergenerational connections were more naturally built into their communities as young people and that society today appears to be increasingly age-segregated. Further development of internalized ageism measures may lead to a better understanding of both the positive and negative aspects of internalized ageism. Future studies should also explore, from the perspective of older adults, recommendations for re-building intentionally intergenerational communities that facilitate authentic engagement and enhanced well-being for all generations.

Decolonizing Research and Urban Youth Work Through Community-University Partnerships

“Grounding Roots” is a community-based collaborative educational program that aims to build food, environmental, and cognitive justice through sustainable urban agriculture and horticulture via intergenerational communities of practice. Drawing upon Linda Tuhiwai Smith’s framework of decolonizing methodologies, this qualitative case study examined the ways in which a Community-University partnership engaged in decolonizing work through research and practice, as well as the ways in which the partnership served to preserve colonizing practices. Data analyses was guided by deductive coding strategies grounded in theory on decolonizing practices. Identified decolonizing practices included implementing a program of worth to the community and youth; building from community-led agendas; and prioritizing community healing and transformation over academic research agendas. Identified colonizing practices included inequitable power hierarchies in the leadership team and in garden groups, deficit-oriented talk about minoritized youth, and the devalorization of youth voice. Implications from this work call for researchers to do their own research about the white supremacist roots embedded in their practices, and to embrace decolonizing and humanizing practices to guide their work. This ongoing work highlights the need for researchers doing community-based work to engage in community-driven agendas that prioritize processes over products; to facilitate distributed leadership in collaboration with community members; and to produce worthwhile work and products with the community.

Service learning and the practice of social justice and care

ABSTRACTThe values of a social justice pedagogy in teacher education are assumed to be firmly established in South African higher education. This article discusses how serviced learning (SL) can provide practical experience of caring and serve the promotion of the ideals of social justice in two initial teacher education programmes. However, an analysis of data in this case study shows that, although SL practice has served as a platform for social justice and for care as two basic educational values, participants were not yet able to verbalize and theorize these values. They were also not able to embed these values in their reflection about service as an inherent component of education. With data from different role players in a number of SL projects, we show that the students’ discourse of what it means to be a caring teacher in a just society has not yet been developed despite the successful practical experience. It was found that, although the students had been building a practice ‘platform’ for service, they had not yet been able to articulate the conceptual intersect of care and social justice clearly. With this epistemological notion in mind, two main themes from the data analysis are discussed: 1) How SL shifted student learning from ideas ‘about’ service to implemented service, and 2) how the practical experience promoted reciprocity in inter-institutional and inter-generational communities of practice.

CREATING SUSTAINABLE AND RESILIENT INTERGENERATIONAL COMMUNITIES: LESSONS FROM FOUR SOCIETIES

Rapid population aging points to significant challenges for the 21st Century including the maintenance of sustainable and resilient intergenerational communities. While on-going work is done on achieving increased healthy life expectancy for active retirees, it is clear that there will always be a need for more understanding by the younger and older generations about the aging process, their changing roles and responsibilities to assure intergenerational community integration. Lacking that awareness and commitment by both the young and old, the prospects for intergenerational conflict is great. This symposium will showcase four (4) presentations from Indonesia, Singapore, Hong Kong and Hawaii that collectively provides cross-national recommendations for the creation of intergenerational communities. The Indonesian study report on the positive value of informal intergenerational caregiving programs which moderate the cost of eldercare services provided with public funds. However, this study also notes that the implementation of these types of programs throughout Indonesia is dependent upon intergenerational leadership to mobilize the generations. The Singapore study is based on paying attention to what older adults are saying as what is important to age well. The study suggests that the next step calls for increased intergenerational awareness early in life for all generations. Hong Kong reports on its approach to intergenerational programs and the emerging lessons from that experience for the community. The Hawaii presentation reports on its Age-Friendly Initiative that embraces an intergenerational approach with its first calls for building awareness, promoting active aging and reducing ageism. This session will provide some common universal threads to build sustainable and resilient intergenerational communities.

Housing choices in later life as unclaimed forms of housing activism

ABSTRACTThis paper explores how housing choices over a lifetime produce under-recognised and unclaimed forms of housing activism. It is based on qualitative interviews with two individuals in their sixties, living in intergenerational communities in the South of England. I argue that their stories of their housing choices and their future housing plans resist dominant housing discourses, particularly as they relate to ageing, and they illuminate a number of under-recognised elements of housing activism. Using Clapham’s housing pathway concept, I describe their narratives of decision-making about where and how to live over their life time to show their agency and their resistance to norms of housing consumption in later life, which are key elements of housing activism. Whilst interviewees recognised the political nature of their housing choices, neither claimed the term ‘housing activist’ nor used the term in their narratives and I argue that this may be because their forms of housing activism were interwoven with domestic and caring needs, emotional experiences, intermittent commitment and ageing identities. Their housing pathways and life stories support emerging theories of activism that broaden definitions from public to private spaces and challenge stereotypes of older people’s involvement in housing activism.

Intergenerational AI and Communities

Intergenerational AI and Communities

Age 55 or Better

Active adult, age-restricted communities are significant to urban history and city planning. As communities that ban the permanent residence of children under the age of nineteen with senior zoning overlays, they are unique experiments in social planning. While they do not originate the concept of the common interest community with its shared amenities, the residential golf course community, or the gated community, Sun Cities and Leisure Worlds do a lot to popularize those physical planning concepts. The first age-restricted community, Youngtown, AZ, opened in 1954. Inspired by amenity-rich trailer courts in Florida, Del Webb added the “active adult” element when he opened Sun City, AZ, in 1960. Two years later, Ross Cortese opened the first of his gated Leisure Worlds. By the twenty-first century, these “lifestyle” communities had proliferated and had expanded their appeal to around 18 percent of retirees, along with influencing the design of intergenerational communities.

1.5 generation Asian migrants and intergenerational transnationalism: Thoughts and challenges from New Zealand

This article analyses New Zealand's post-1987 immigration patterns, specifically the arrival of East Asian professionals and their families, and their impact on the demographic and cultural composition of New Zealand society. The discussion addresses a specific and under-theorised category of migrants: school-aged children who migrate with their parents, identified as the ‘1.5 generation’. Focusing on the unique position and attributes of the 1.5 generation, it is posited that New Zealand's new intergenerational transmigrant communities seriously challenge conventional attempts to explain – and manage – migrant settlement and incorporation into host societies.

Intergenerational Programming for Foster-Adoptive Families

Generations of Hope serves foster and adoptive children, their adoptive families and older adults through an innovative program that is breaking new ground in the development of caring intergenerational communities. It was created in 1993 as a non-profit social service agency designed to improve the service delivery and policies of the child welfare system; it ended up helping not only foster and adopted children but senior citizens as well. This paper examines critical social issues facing both foster children and senior citizens in the United States and how this program created a neighborhood that combines several generations of kin-like support to meet the needs of these vulnerable groups. We describe how the Generations of Hope model brings together in tangible ways critical shifts in perspective regarding foster care and gerontology. The lessons we have learned speak to research, policy making and practice.