Intergenerational Experience Research Articles

Un atelier marionnettes réunit des jeunes polyhandicapés et des personnes âgées

The Roche-Guyon Hospital cares for children, adolescents and young adults with multiple disability after their discharge from rehabilitation units. In order to strengthen their social development, the educative service elaborated a common project with the Magny-en-Vexin geriatric unit. During the school year, five young patients with multiple disability and eight institutionalized elderly persons came together in puppet workshops. Workshop themes about puppets included: painting, rhythm, respiration and relaxation. The educative approach led to the presentation of a puppet show by the young multiple disability patients and the elderly persons. This enriching interinstitutional and intergenerational experience changed our image of disability.

Young Adults' Intergenerational Communication Schemas in Taiwan and the USA

The present research systematically examines cognitive representations of stereotypes of old age and young adults' and older adults' perceptions of their own communication accommodative behaviors, emotions, and communication satisfaction when a particular Intergenerational Communication Schema is activated. Taiwanese respondents show both congruent and incongruent patterns of responding: Some schemas yield consistently positive or negative responses across dependent variables, whereas others yield mixed and apparently inconsistent patterns. Respondents from the USA show that a helping orientation, when it is associated with different schemas (positive, very sympathetic, or negative) may result in different overall evaluations of the intergenerational conversation experience. Results are discussed in relation to the Communication Predicament of Aging Model and Chinese cultural values of intergenerational communication. Limitations are acknowledged and future studies are suggested.

“It's a Magical Thing”

ABSTRACT The Royal South Street Society was originally established to meet an educational need in nineteenth-century Ballarat (a gold fields town in Victoria, Australia). It is now the organising group for a substantial eisteddfod that involves thousands of competitors in performing arts and debating, and hundred of volunteers. This paper considers the experiences of some of the competitors, volunteers and organisers in order to explore the ways that the intergenerational experience of the competitions builds community capacity within the city of Ballarat. The nature of the learning that takes place through participation, for both competitors and volunteers, and the ways in which individuals become connected to their communities through this experience, are examined. Also considered are the ways in which intergenerational relationships developed through the competitions foster a sense of belonging and worth both for the young, who are usually the competitors, and for the older members of the community, who are often the volunteers.

An Interdisciplinary Oral History Initiative

To achieve a significant educational experience that offered effective and lasting change in students' attitudes about expertise and collaboration, the authors designed an interdisciplinary project that purposefully linked students from history of pharmacy and communication studies courses. Over 3 successive semesters, 60 students formed interdisciplinary teams to design, conduct, and transcribe area pharmacists' oral histories. This project challenged students to overcome stereotypes, address anxiety about working with people outside traditional peer groups, and recognize specialized knowledge and skills they offered to the interdisciplinary partnership. Fifty-seven students wrote individual reflective self analyses that examined their own attitudes and experiences prior to, during, and after the project. Qualitative and quantitative analyses of the students' accounts provided substantial insight into the value of the interdisciplinary and intergenerational experience as well as students' recognition of disciplinary expertise, both in and outside of their respective majors.

Understanding the association between teenage pregnancy and inter-generational factors: A comparative and analytical study

Objectives (1) to identify the number of teenage pregnant women who also have mothers who became pregnant when they were in their teenage years and (2) to explore the importance of this intergenerational experience on the teenagers themselves, their significant family, friends and society as a whole. Design semi-structured interviews with the subjects allowed for both breadth and depth exploration. Sample the total research sample was 95 teenage women, which included 48 pregnant (51%) and 47 non-pregnant (49%) women. Stage 1 reports on the findings relating to the intergenerational phenomena and stage 2 focuses on related historical experiences of a further 8 interviews with subjects who had experienced this intergenerational phenomenon. The subjects in both stages of this study came from two contrasting demographic areas of the UK: North West and South East. Measurements data were analysed using an appropriate qualitative software package. The specific categories of experience were constructed using a grounded theory approach. Findings the findings of stage 1 of the study showed that the number of teenage women who reported that they had a mother who's first baby was born to her when she was under 20 years of age was 33 (69%) for the pregnant group and 12 (26%) for the non-pregnant group. This was found to be statistically significant ( χ 2=6.51, df=1, p=<0.011). In this study (from a sub-set of 19 themes) three major themes emerged: (a) reflection, (b) peer group pressure and (c) intergenerational factors. Conclusions reflection, peer group pressure and intergenerational factors were the major thematic findings of this study. Midwives working collaboratively with other health, social and educational colleagues have a pivotal role to work with families in addressing the complexities of intergenerational teenage pregnancy. A national multi-method research study is now required to explore the breadth of intergenerational teenage pregnancy and the experiences of those families where this social construct is prevalent.

Learning to live with being a physician

This paper draws on the results of an eight‐month research project designed to foster reflection and professional growth in an intergenerational group of medical students, residents, and newly practicing physicians. Over a period of several months, participants individually read books written by physician authors of their experiences in clinical practice. After each book reading, the group met and engaged in a tape‐recorded and researcher‐facilitated discussions about the book. Reading followed by discussion was chosen as a process to promote increased self‐reflection amongst the participants. Participants reflected on the readings and on their own experiences of moving through professional education in the process of becoming physicians. There were eight meetings. A thematic analysis of the eight transcripts of group meetings identified twelve overarching themes. Nine are discussed in this paper. The three additional themes address the participants’ experiences of the process and are described elsewhere. The nine themes range from the ‘image of super doc’ to ‘learning from patients’. Several themes contained sub‐themes. The themes resonate with other findings in medical education about the experience of becoming physicians. The themes are discussed in relation to other research on designing spaces for reflective growth in medical education. Insights into the benefits of an intergenerational group experience are discussed.

Implementation and Delivery of an Intergenerational Community Learning Experience

The Family Home Visit Program (FHV) is part of the year-long 1st year Practice of Medicine course, and involves local multi-generational families and students from the schools of medicine and allied health. The FHV program differs considerably from more traditional community-based clinical practice experience: visits to an ill individual, community-based experiences designed for reminiscence by the “patient,” or multiple community-based agency courses/visits. The focus of the current intergenerational FHV is on interaction between families and students in a non-clinical setting (e.g., relating to patients as “people”), learning about the social and familial context in which health and illness occur and the healthcare priorities of family members. In year 1 of the program, 200 medical students, 40 OT/PT students and 68 families participated; 204 medical students, 70 OT/PT students and 70 families participated in year 2. The development, implementation, evaluation and outcomes of the program across two years are discussed.

Ethics, Technology, and the Future: An Intergenerational Experience in Engineering Education

How do engineering educators adequately and richly introduce to young engineers the perplexing ethical issues associated with the development of new technologies? Robotics, nanotechnology, cloning, cyberintelligence, and genetic engineering, for example, each hold the potential to radically alter the fundamental nature of human life. Senior citizens in our society have a lifetime of experience adopting new technologies into their lives. Through an intergenerational dialogue, undergraduate engineers can come to appreciate and understand what technological change can really mean, both in practical and ethical terms. This article explores the use of intergenerational dialogue as a learning tool, with a focus on the experience of students enrolled in a required engineering ethics course. Reactions and thoughts recounted in this article from both undergraduate engineers and senior citizens signify the immeasurable educational value of intergenerational exploration and its effectiveness in examining the ethical questions connected to the development of new technologies.

THE POWER OF BOOK DISCUSSION GROUPS IN INTERGENERATIONAL LEARNING

Learning about human development across the lifespan is basic to health care education. What better way for students to understand these concepts than to be actively engaged in projects with different generations of individuals such aselders? Active learning is an effective strategy to help developing health care professionals. This article highlights a unique intergenerational project of book study groups embedded in a health professions course focused on geriatrics. A study of this intergenerational book group immersion experience examined changes in thinking, values, and beliefs of students and elders. The qualitative and demographic participant data were coded and thematically analyzed. The outcome of the study indicates that the intergenerational group experience resulted in positive mutual benefit among students and elders. Using an intergenerational book discussion group can be a memorable and synergistic opportunity for learning.

EFFECTS OF AN INTERGENERATIONAL PROGRAM ON THE ATTITUDES OF EMOTIONALLY DISTURBED YOUTH TOWARD THE ELDERLY

Through intergenerational contact, studies show that youth and older adults can enjoy many mutual benefits. Little research is available, however, on the effects such programs have on the attitudes of emotionally disturbed youth toward the elderly. This article examines the effects of an intergenerational program on the attitudes of emotionally disturbed youth toward the elderly. The program involved 36 older individuals from three sites in the community and nine adolescent boys from a residential treatment center for troubled youth. The program included a classroom curriculum and corresponding visits with older people at the community sites. The students' attitudes about older people were measured at the onset and at the conclusion of the intergenerational program. The results indicate that the youths' attitudes toward older people were less positive after the intergenerational experience. However, their evaluations of the program were extremely favorable. These results suggest that overall the youth involved in the program had very positive attitudes about the experience and the older people they interacted with during the intergenerational experience. Implications for practice and future research are discussed.

The Articulation of Nursing Systems With Dependent Care Systems of Intergenerational Caregivers

Family members, especially adult children, provide the majority of care required by aging relatives. While there is a plethora of literature on family caregiving, generally, the intergenerational caregiving experience is not well documented. The purpose of this article is to explain the articulation of nursing systems with dependent care systems of intergenerational caregivers from three perspectives: (a) Orem's dependent care unit of service, (b) Taylor's interpretation of family as dependent care systems, and (c) Bowers' theory of intergenerational caregiving.

EVALUATION OF AN INTERGENERATIONAL SERVICE‐LEARNING PROJECT FOR UNDERGRADUATES

An appropriate objective within a liberal arts approach to education is enhancing students’ awareness of attitudes toward their own aging. A combined intervention of intergenerational experience and didactic instruction had a favorable effect on students’ attitudes toward older adults in general and on students’ view of their own later lives. Additional positive consequences are discussed, and suggestions for running similar curricular components are presented.

Agrarian origins, industrial experience, and militancy: An analysis of textile workers

What are the impacts of agrarian origins and industrial experience upon worker militancy? Investigations of this question have been framed by reference to the experiences of newly proletarianized workers‐their path to the factory via farming and their industrial experience or socialization into nonfarm working class life. Some argue that newly proletarianized workers are prone to militancy due to their inexperience with factory discipline and marginal workplace positions. Others maintain that the characteristics of recently arrived workers fail to promote or may even inhibit militancy. These competing perspectives are examined by analyzing the effects of farm background and personal and intergenerational industrial experience on four measures of militancy for a sample of textile workers from a Southern community. The analysis suggests some support for the perspective that workers with less personal experience in the mills have higher levels of militancy. Workers from farm backgrounds were slightly more mi...

Getting the Generations Back Together: A Rationale for Development of Community Based Intergenerational Interaction Programs

Community agencies which serve the aged and the young have most often been created to fill need gaps for age specific groups with few attempts to coordinate programs to deal with problems of generational isolation accruing from lack of intergenerational contacts. Those who work with families, community agencies, and educational institutions can serve key roles in reestablishing family-like environments which bring people of all ages back together. Relevant literature is summarized and programming suggestions are made to aid those who work with families to identify and coordinate formal and informal aging-youth-child community networks, to provide for intergenerational experience, and to serve as sites for intergenerational interaction research.