TY - JOUR
T1 - Intergenerational Learning in Higher Education
T2 - Making the Case for Multigenerational Classrooms
AU - Sánchez, Mariano
AU - Kaplan, Matthew
N1 - Funding Information:
The stay of first author Mariano Sánchez at The Pennsylvania State University was funded under the framework of the sabbaticals program held by the University of Granada’s Vice-Provost Office for Scientific Policy and Research.
PY - 2014/7
Y1 - 2014/7
N2 - Educational institutions in higher education both in Europe and in the United States are increasingly integrating lifelong learning in a context of sustained augmentation of age diversity among their students. Therefore, multiage and multigenerational classrooms are becoming more frequent teaching and learning settings. This article argues that multigenerational classrooms in formal higher education may constitute windows of opportunity to rethink the practice of teaching as far as they epitomize venues for triggering processes of intergenerational learning. This type of learning stems from an awareness of differences accrued through individual and group affiliation to diverse generational positions. Furthermore, the article provides conceptual delineation and insight regarding the practice of teaching and learning in multigenerational classrooms. Primarily concerned with how higher education instructors may see and understand multigenerational classrooms as distinctive settings for their teaching to lifelong learners, the authors explore how age differences among students and instructors can be framed in ways that contribute to content- and interaction-rich intergenerational teaching-learning processes. A multigenerational classroom is deemed to be one in which some of its members from various generations have a certain degree of generational awareness of belonging to different/same generations. Against attaching a specific set of attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors to people according to their generational affiliation, this article suggests that it is the dynamic relation between inter- and intragenerational differences and commonalities that needs to be taken into account when considering multigenerational classrooms.
AB - Educational institutions in higher education both in Europe and in the United States are increasingly integrating lifelong learning in a context of sustained augmentation of age diversity among their students. Therefore, multiage and multigenerational classrooms are becoming more frequent teaching and learning settings. This article argues that multigenerational classrooms in formal higher education may constitute windows of opportunity to rethink the practice of teaching as far as they epitomize venues for triggering processes of intergenerational learning. This type of learning stems from an awareness of differences accrued through individual and group affiliation to diverse generational positions. Furthermore, the article provides conceptual delineation and insight regarding the practice of teaching and learning in multigenerational classrooms. Primarily concerned with how higher education instructors may see and understand multigenerational classrooms as distinctive settings for their teaching to lifelong learners, the authors explore how age differences among students and instructors can be framed in ways that contribute to content- and interaction-rich intergenerational teaching-learning processes. A multigenerational classroom is deemed to be one in which some of its members from various generations have a certain degree of generational awareness of belonging to different/same generations. Against attaching a specific set of attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors to people according to their generational affiliation, this article suggests that it is the dynamic relation between inter- and intragenerational differences and commonalities that needs to be taken into account when considering multigenerational classrooms.
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U2 - 10.1080/03601277.2013.844039
DO - 10.1080/03601277.2013.844039
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84896707512
SN - 0360-1277
VL - 40
SP - 473
EP - 485
JO - Educational Gerontology
JF - Educational Gerontology
IS - 7
ER -