Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic laid bare many of the social inequities and vulnerabilities within the American nursing home industry that social gerontologists have spent decades trying to address. Intergenerational learning is thought to be an effective approach to: a) breaking down and debunking ageism and b) addressing social isolation across populations and contexts. For the past 5 years, I have brought undergraduate students into a local nursing home to work with elders on an intergenerational learning project. Using a mixed-method approach, this study explores the benefits of intergenerational learning between college-aged students and nursing home residents and staff using the improvisational storytelling method TimeSlips™ (TS). The central goals include getting students to see the utility of a liberal arts education outside the classroom, exposing them to intergenerational conversations, and, ultimately, breaking down ageist and ableist assumptions they may hold. Another central goal is serving our community members living and working in institutional care settings, where both residents’ quality of life and staff work satisfaction has been demonstrated to improve during arts-based interventions and programming. Intergenerational learning attempts to serve the dual benefit of disrupting negative views of aging and older people for residents and staff while bringing stimulation and social interactions to residents. The successes and obstacles encountered over the past 5 years are discussed and suggestions for future modifications and implementation in other settings are made.
Presenters
Renee BeardProfessor, Sociology and Anthropology, College of the Holy Cross, Massachusetts, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
Social and Cultural Perspectives on Aging
KEYWORDS
Nursing homes Intergenerational learning Memory loss arts-based interventions
