Multigenerational Learning Research Articles

Rural communities and schools – Valuing and reproducing local culture

School closures are frequently and widely discussed and provoke debates both at the local community level and in national arenas. Our study was inspired by the local resistance to school closures in Norwegian rural areas, asking how local inhabitants cope with threats of school closure. The study is based on seven group interviews with parents, grandparents, and teachers in four rural communities which have experienced recurring threats of school closure. In this article we explore how they argued to keep their schools open and how this links with valuing and reproducing local communities and cultures. The teachers and parents reported on extended school-community activities involving local populations and next of kin across generations. Through the school the inhabitants possess resources enabling them to deal with the activities and ceremonies that belong to life in general, and which frame and give integrity to their lives in the local community. When introducing village activities at school and school activities in the village, multi-generational learning and socialisation become part of the rural community's viability and continuity. The school imports and transfers knowledge related to the curriculum (natural science, math, history, geography) through practical events and exercises. These practices and activities potentially also inspire and create new generations of hunters, fishermen and mountain hikers giving them a sense of belonging to and being affiliated with the local community. The gendered aspects of rural life and how this is reflected in the teachers' practices and local inhabitants' participation in school activities became evident when analysing practices toward hunting and fishing. Whether the school-community-nature practices preserve or explode traditional gender ideologies is to be researched further. • The school represents self-sufficiency and integrity to local inhabitants and communities. • The extended school-community relations frame local life from birth to death and across generations. • Gender ideologies in school-community-nature relations are to be further researched.

Imagining University/Community Collaborations as Third Spaces to Support Indigenous Language Revitalization

This paper explores the development of language instruction programs in universities to support Indigenous language revitalization. Eleven Indigenous educators shared rich insights through interviews. Their visions called for language learning that is functional, inseparable from land-based learning, and within multigenerational learning environments led by Elders. Building on these visions, the authors imagined a third space—an Indigenous-led, in-between space—to discuss the potentialities for universities and local communities to come together. The discussion offers strategies for a third space where universities support language revitalization in communities through co-programming, community-based courses in functional, immersive settings guided by Elders, and an online site for additional supports.

The teaching of gerontology: Seven years of course design, redesign, and assessment in a multigenerational classroom

ABSTRACT Intergenerational teaching using a multigenerational course design is certainly not a new pedagogical technique. However, the longitudinal assessment and redesign of three gerontology courses described here can offer educators and professionals insights into reflection as a requirement not only within the course but also about the course itself. Since 2009, the Gerontology Program at Nazareth College has collaborated with the St. John’s Senior Living Communities to offer college-level courses comprising both Nazareth students and elder residents. In these courses, the elders not only participate on an equal basis with the students but also, together with the students, engage in regular course assessments. This article offers a review of course designs, assignments linked to student-learning outcomes, service-learning projects, and the numerous opportunities created for both personal and professional growth. Utilizing three different courses, this comprehensive study of intergenerational and multigenerational learning provides examples of different forms of engagement between students and elders and serves as a model for course design.

Three generational issues in organizational learning

PurposeMethods for facilitating learning and knowledge transfer in multigenerational workplaces are of importance to organizations. Yet, intergenerational learning is vastly understudied in academic organizational literature. This conceptual paper aims to recommend future directions for studying intergenerational learning by examining three interrelated considerations.Design/methodology/approachGeneral knowledge management concepts, various generationally based perspectives on training and low-stakes development initiatives, are examined by integrating the existing literature.FindingsThe authors suggest that improved learning will occur in organizations that facilitate targeted socialization, respond to new preferences and trends in development programs while leveraging multiple approaches including informal/individualized initiatives (such as on-the-job education, mentorship programs) and embrace multiple types of volunteering activities.Originality valueAlthough other work has reviewed intergenerational learning, this is the first research to focus on multigenerational learning while considering tacit and practical learning transference from inside and outside the organization.

Study of a multigenerational learning program in Taiwan

ABSTRACTThe aim of the Multigenerational Learning Program (MLP) is to increase multigenerational interactions through activities, which will help all learners including middle aged to older adults, university students, and children to improve multigenerational understanding, and increase their positive attitudes toward each other. The MLP activities were conducted between February 2012 and June 2014. A total of 196 middle aged to older adults, 10 university students and 163 children participated in multiple sessions. The authors’ survey results revealed that the participating children’s attitude toward the adults and elder generations became somewhat more positive from pre-test to post-test, but not significantly. Interestingly, it was also shown that elder participants’ attitudes toward the children did not change significantly from pre-test to post-test. Furthermore, all participants enjoyed participation in the MLP and demonstrated strong interest in repeating the program.The Multigenerational Learning Program (MLP) undoubtedly has a role to play in the social context of the Taiwan today. Taiwan has an aging population, as the birth rate has declined and people are living longer in the meanwhile (Hong, Hwang, Liang, & Chang, 2008). Recently, it has been argued that Taiwanese societies hold negative stereotypes and misconceptions about the elderly and the aging process including traits like physical and mental deterioration, depression, irritability, dependence, inactivity, and isolation. Such negative views could lead to age-based discrimination (Hong et al., 2008). Unfortunately, developing positive attitudes toward older adults has become increasingly difficult, given that many children do not have the opportunities they once had for continued contact with the elderly due to changing family structures, increasing in single-parent and two working-parent families, and often, families relocate to communities that offer more job opportunities (Martin, Springate, & Atkinson, 2010).

Multigenerational learning for expanding the educational involvement of bilinguals experiencing academic difficulties

ABSTRACTFocusing on two bilingual children experiencing learning difficulties, I explore the scientific representations these students generate in an afterschool programme where they have opportunities to exercise agency. In the programme, children use a digital camera to document science in their lives and engage in conversations about the products they generate. Acting as agents in this context requires that these children undertake the responsibility of transforming the knowledge and practice of the afterschool community. Using cultural historical activity theory, I analyse child-generated multimodal data and conversations. Findings show that these two bilinguals acted as agents as they responded to the proposed curriculum in a process I call multigenerational learning. This process served to bring to the surface children's culturally relevant practices, allowing them to recognize science in their lives. As other students, teacher candidates and researchers in the afterschool programme engaged in analysing children's work and in conversations with them and others about the multimodal products, negotiations on what counts as science and science knowledge took place. These spaces assisted in generating a more complete “able” view of participating children. This study addresses concepts for expanding the educational involvement of emergent bilingual children perceived as potentially in need of special education services, including the importance of providing opportunities for children to negotiate family and community involvement in curricula and instruction.

Multi- or Intergenerational Learning? Exploring Some Meanings

ABSTRACTThrough a previous project, I explored the community impact of a “family learning” intergenerational project. Throughout this work, the term intergenerational remained problematic, construed, as it so often is, in a rather narrow way to include merely two generations. I suggested that to increase levels of cohesion and empowerment and to reflect more accurately the reality of our communities, it could be better to focus on the concept of multigenerational working and learning, to bring together greater cross-community involvement. This article therefore explores multigenerational learning from a theory and practice perspective.

Fostering a new model of multigenerational learning: Older adult perspectives, community partners, and higher education

ABSTRACTIntergenerational service-learning initiatives are an increasingly common educational practice designed to engage college students and older adults with one another. The growth of the baby boomer population and a growing interest in lifelong learning opportunities among older adults have the potential to create new models of multigenerational education within colleges and universities. The purpose of this study is to describe the multigenerational interaction and educational interests of older adults who reside in a medium-sized independent and assisted living setting. Results from a survey completed by elders (n = 128) and two focus groups (n = 17) indicate a strong interest in multigenerational-learning with college students. A majority of elders preferred on-site programming (as opposed to attending sessions on a college campus), time-limited faculty-led lectures around topics related to history, arts, computers, and literature. These findings are of great importance for institutions of higher education that are preparing students for careers in an aging society and can expand their educational offerings to lifelong learners using a multigenerational framework.

How Family Business Members Learn About Continuity

Continuity is about connection and cohesion over time. A defining question in the study of family business is how the family and the business can endure and survive across generations. Learning about continuity is fundamental in addressing that question. This study explores how family business members learn about continuity. It draws on concepts of communities of practice and legitimate peripheral participation derived from Lave and Wenger’s (1991) situated-learning perspective. These are used as theoretical lenses to explore the relationship between family members and learning through an interpretive and inductive study of 18 respondents from family businesses in Canada. This study shows learning in the family business context is about continuity, but the process of learning in which the family engages is uneven, nonlinear, and unpredictable. To deal with these complexities and learn about continuity, family members participate in multiple ways, often gradually over time. Our work here reveals that gradual participation to build legitimacy as a multigenerational learning phenomenon involves multiple forms of coparticipation influenced by family members from the past, present, and future.

Epic Learning in an Indian Pueblo: A Framework for Studying Multigenerational Learning in the History of Education

Writing from her position as the Office of Indian Affairs (OIA) Superintendent at the Potrero School on the Morongo (Malki) reservation in southern California in 1909, Clara D. True concluded an article on her experiences as an Anglo teacher working with American Indian populations in the United States:The more one knows of the Indian as he really is, not as he appears to the tourist, the teacher, or the preacher, the more one wonders. The remnant of knowledge that the Red Brother has is an inheritance from a people of higher thought than we have usually based our speculation upon. It is to be regretted that in dealing with the Indian we have not regarded him worthwhile until it is too late to enrich our literature and traditions with the contribution he could so easily have made. We have regarded him as a thing to be robbed and converted rather than as a being with intellect, sensibilities, and will, all highly developed, the development being one on different lines from our own as only necessity dictated. The continent was his college. The slothful student was expelled from it by President Nature. Physically, mentally, and morally, the North American Indian before the degradation at our hands was a man whom his descendants need not despise.

Family Communication and Multigenerational Learning in an Intergenerational Land Transfer Class

Recognizing intergenerational differences sets the stage for sharing and learning across the generations. An intergenerational land transfer education class was designed to engage families around the issue of parcelization and development of forested lands. A post-class survey of the Intergenerational Land Transfer class was used to evaluate outcomes. Recognizing intergenerational differences in learning was found to be important in catalyzing family discussion and protect working forestlands. This article provides an example of a multi-generational approach to teaching. This approach has implications for program areas beyond agriculture and forestry.