Intergenerational learning seems to be finally on the educational agenda. Thousands of initiatives in the way of intergenerational learning programs and practices are being implemented internationally to facilitate learning opportunities among different generations. Are school systems following this trend? The fact that formal education in schools is typically organized in facilities where teachers and younger students from different generations meet and interact every day under one roof might lead to belief that the intergenerational nature of the school environment can be taken for granted. However, the circumstance that schools include people from different generations may make them multigenerational, but not necessarily inter-generational learning organizations.
Therefore, guest editors for this Special Issue thought that it made sense to pay attention to what and how our schools are purposefully doing to enhance their profile as spaces for intergenerational learning and education. As the world continues to age, we will increasingly need places to allow elders to enhance their vital roles in society that keep themselves developing as life-long learners. As we face increasing local and global social and environmental challenges, the long-term solidarity enhancing attributes of intergenerational learning and its associated values will become increasingly critical.
The reaction to our call has been impressive to the point that we have finally been able to accept 17 papers (10 scholarly papers, 2 programs profiles, 3 reflections from the field, 1 book review, and 1 thematic children’s book review) coming from seven countries (Australia, Canada, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States). We would like to express our sincere gratitude to all authors and reviewers ‒ some of them scholars, and some grass-root practitioners, involved in the process.
Along the way to this Special Issue, we had to reconsider our initial approach little bit. The term “school” has been broadened to include formal education settings mainly focused on children and/or youth. Why this change? Because some of the submitted papers included interesting reflections which even, if not made within the framework of the school system, might be interesting for intergenerational practitioners involved in schools. Hence, our decision to apply the word “school” flexibly.
Practice, research, and policy
The Special Issue starts with a paper on mentoring. From Scotland, Hunter, Wilson connect intergenerational learning and mentoring with inequality in access to higher education. Retired professionals are matched with secondary school pupils who are supported in their journey into higher education. This paper illustrates how intergenerational learning may become an effective vehicle to increase social mobility and challenge inequality. Knowledge gained and support for children’s self-agency were the two emerging qualities in this learning context consisting of mentoring children using literature.
Subsequent papers look at intergenerational practice in one way or another. For instance, Gallager and Fitzpatrick pay attention to the level, sustainability, and pedagogies of intergenerational practice in preschools and elder care settings in Ireland. They argued that sustainable intergenerational practice is facilitated by strong pedagogies that support active and relational learning across the life-course and by being embedded in robust community networks. Beynon and Lang, from a Canadian context, organized their paper around the idea that schools need to become and be seen as welcoming and accessible places of lifelong learning from infancy to elderhood. Their purpose is to describe the learning, as well as the organizational and functional affordances required to set up an intergenerational learning-through-singing program involving young children at school and elders living in a retirement home. Based in Australia, Cartmel and her colleagues present a systematic literature review of the qualitative evidence in relation to intergenerational learning programs, principles, and practices geared at providing good quality care for different generations. Their aim is to develop the evidence base to form an Intergenerational Model of Practice Framework in a country where they say that intergenerational programs are only in their infancy.
Now, with a more research-based tone, Orte and her colleagues analyzed “Sharing Childhood” a multicountry (Spain, Poland, and Turkey) intergenerational program carried out in primary schools to foster positive relationships. In fact, in their list of six recommendations for practice, they highlighted the centrality that intergenerational relationships must have in intergenerational learning programs. Hanmore-Cawley and Scharf explored the potential of intergenerational learning collaborations to develop civic literacy in young children in Irish primary schools. Their findings confirm that across a range of curriculum-related collaborations, students showed significant improvement in civic literacy scores over an academic year of intergenerational learning activities. Babcock, MaloneBeach, in the US, tackle a classical issue in the intergenerational programming field, namely how intergenerational programs may impact children’s biases toward older adults. Through quantitative and qualitative evaluation of a specific program, this paper delves into explicating why significant results may not arise after the intervention against the expected results of positive change. In a shorter paper, Gendron, Rubin and Peron, based in the United States, focus on which criteria from intergroup contact theory are met by intergenerational learning programs as presented in the literature. They argued that whenever all criteria are in place, we should talk not just of intergenerational, but of transgenerational engagement, a concept highlighting reciprocity, joint engagement, and co-learning that promotes shared activity and challenges assumptions, judgments, and stereotypes. A Canadian team led by Cucinelly takes intergenerational learning into a different realm, participatory game design. Through a workshop technique, they wonder to what extent intergenerational learning may be a powerful pathway to design video games. While not directly engaged in the school context, this paper presents a new type of intergenerational learning process, which might expand learning opportunities for children at school and connect them to the outside community.
The only policy-based paper in the Special Issue comes from Spain. Sánchez and his colleagues took the challenge to present the wider context and possibilities for developing intergenerational education in Spanish primary schools, which they deem to be ideal contact zones for bridging intergenerational relationships across familial and nonfamilial settings. They present seven principles that policy-makers should consider when planning the infusion of intergenerational perspectives in primary schools.
The From the Field section in the Special Issue starts with two Profiles depicting intergenerational programs at schools in Northern Ireland and Spain. Then, three Reflections from the Field follow. In the first one, from the United States, Whitehouse and George invite us to move from intergenerational to intergenerative. The latter term emphasizes that blending sources of creativity in society can go beyond just focusing on different generations, but include different disciplines, ethnicities, and nations. Intergenerativity illustrates what we are attempting in this Special Issue, namely to go between areas of generativity to go beyond into the next stage of future evolution of intergenerational learning programs. In the second piece, Azevedo, Palmeirão, and Paúl shared some lessons learned when managing intergenerational school programs in Portugal, and in the final Reflection Lee, Anderson and Shim made the case for setting up school–university partnerships to address the need for intergenerational learning within grandparent-headed families.
Finally, a review by Sáez on a recent book published in Uruguay telling the story of an intergenerational school program, and a collaborative children’s book review by Whitehouse, Kruger and Whitehouse close the Special Issue on a selection of English children’s literature which has proven to stimulate intergenerational conversation across ages, cultivate a positive view of aging, and serve as the basis for a wide variety of intergenerational projects.
To tell a long story short, and as Beynon and Lang say in their paper, the articles in this Special Issue report on ventures that not only enhance intergenerational learning in an innovative means for a younger generation and elders, but also transform concepts of intergenerational learning for both younger and older generations. We really hope that the readership enjoys this collection of articles as much as we, a multigenerational editorial team, have enjoyed and learned during its preparation.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Mariano Sánchez
Mariano Sanchez, Doc.Soc. – Dr. Sanchez is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Granada (Spain) and Principal Investigator in the project “Improving our Educational System: Introducing a Model of Intergenerational School in Primary Education” (funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness), under implementation in collaboration with The Intergenerational Schools.
Email: [email protected]
Peter Whitehouse
Peter Whitehouse, Ph.D. – Peter J. Whitehouse, MD, PhD, is a Professor of Neurology at Case Western Reserve University, a Professor of Medicine at the University of Toronto, and a President of Intergenerational Schools International. He is also currently a strategic advisor in innovation at Baycrest Health Center. In 1999, he founded with his wife, Catherine, The Intergenerational School, a unique public multiage, community school (www.tisonline.org). He is active as a geriatric neurologist, cognitive scientist, environmental ethicist, and photographer. He contributes to visual arts, dance, and music organizations globally. He is the coauthor of “The Myth of Alzheimer’s: what you aren’t being told about today’s most dreaded diagnosis” (www.themythofalzheimers.com) and hundreds of papers and writings.
Email: [email protected]
Lynn Johnston
Lynn Johnston, Ph.D. – Dr. Johnston is a Regional Development Coordinator with Linking Generations Northern Ireland (LGNI) (www.http://linkinggenerationsni.com/), which is part of the Beth Johnson Foundation. LGNI develops, supports, and facilitates all-age connections in a variety of spaces for a variety of purposes across Northern Ireland. Lynn’s doctoral thesis, admitted by Queen’s University Belfast in 2014, was a case study of age relationships in a Northern Irish neighborhood.
Email: [email protected]
Mariano Sanchez, Doc.Soc,Universidad de Granada, Granada, SpainEmail: [email protected]
Peter Whitehouse, PhD,Western Reserve University, OH 44106, USAEmail: [email protected]
Lynn Johnston, PhD,Linking Generations Northern Ireland, part of the Beth Johnson Foundation, UK.Email: [email protected]