From friendly to rebel grannies and psycho older men: views on aging and old people among Romanian children

ABSTRACT

The article analyses children’s views on aging in the context of social changes in Romania. Data from drawings and interviews conducted with 120 middle school children (75 girls and 45 boys) aged from 11 to 14 years, illustrate how views on aging and old people reflect cultural notions of aging and older individuals. Findings point out a mixture of positive views, imported from an international positive aging discourse and negative views that reflect the Romanian social reality of aging. Gender stereotypes also seem to impact how older people are perceived. Findings are critically discussed in relation to how social realities foster the maintenance and change of cultural views on aging and what kind of educational interventions should be developed.     

CHILDREN'S ATTITUDES TOWARD THE ELDERLY: EDUCATIONAL IMPLICATIONS

The CATE (Children's Attitudes Toward the Elderly) was administered to 180 children, 20 at each level from age 3 to age 11. Results suggest that children at all age levels have limited knowledge of and contact with older people. Few children gave positive responses about growing old themselves; most did not perceive being old as positive. Attitudes of children toward the elderly suggest a mixture of positive feelings of affect and either stereotypic or negative attitudes about the physical aspects of age. It was determined that children's concepts of age increase in accuracy as they increase in age. Educational implications include providing accurate information about the elderly and actual contact with older people, enabling children to assess their perceptions of the aging process and how aging affects them, and exposing children to an unbiased look at the attributes, behaviors, and characteristics of the elderly in a wide variety of roles in order to avoid or extinguish the formation of stereotypic, negative attitudes.     

LATENCY‐AGED CHILDREN'S VIEWS OF AGING

This study investigated the contents of children's attitudes toward the elderly and compared these attitudes with the children's attitudes toward young people.

The Children's Views on Aging (CVOA) questionnaire was administered to 256 latency‐aged (8‐10 year‐old) children. The children were white and black, male and female, and came from both rural and urban backgrounds.

The children's responses to the CVOA were analyzed quantitatively using chi‐square and t‐tests. The results showed that children had some negative perceptions of the aging process, but positive views of the older person. Comparison of the children's attitudes toward older people and young people showed that the children's attitudes were more negative toward older people in the potency dimension of attitude but more positive toward older people in the evaluative dimension. The findings suggest that children's attitudes toward aging are complex and diverse. Important implications for educational practice are discussed.

This study formed part of Ronald Marks’ doctoral dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the School of Social Work, University of Pittsburgh, 1980.     

依托幼儿园开展老年闲暇教育的思考

我国已进入老龄社会,老年教育日益受到重视,如何为老年人在其闲暇时间里提供便利而简捷的受教育途径是当前老年教育的重要课题.老年教育可以借助于幼儿因这一平台,在老年人、幼儿和幼儿因三方面互利互惠的前提下,本着帮助老年人顺利实现角色转变和耀索老年教育实施方式的目的.提出了依托幼儿园开展老年闲暇教育的构想.     

货币化子女赡养责任,以制度推动居家养老服务?--基于上海市的社会调查

如何养老已经成为国家、社会和家庭都非常担忧和焦虑的问题,居家养老是一项化解未来养老沉重负担的重要措施。但是由于当前家庭少子化、照护资源紧缺以及人口老龄化和高龄化速度加快,居家养老面临着照护人员缺乏、照护资金不足诸多现实困境。货币化子女赡养责任是挖掘家庭资源,缓解家庭照护缺位、服务提供不足之矛盾的有效途径。调查发现对缴纳赡养费,民众支持程度尚可,认可度有差异。随年龄增长,对赡养费的支持度增加;成年子女的收入、教育水平对货币化赡养责任的意愿也有不同的影响。在劳动力流动的现代社会,有必要探索建立赡养费制度,并加以制度约束与规范,同时应善用文化软力量的导向效应。     

护理保险制度--日本养老保障新举措

护理保险是针对急速发展的老龄化社会问题所实施的,对陷于卧床不起等老年人,在充分尊重他们的意愿和选择的基础上,向他们提供日常生活方面的支援的制度.护理保险制度以社会保险的方式导入,各地方行政机构作为保险者,对40岁以上的国民征收保险费,国家和各地方政府有义务给予经济和发展护理保险事业的支持与援助.护理保险的财政来源以国家公费和所征收的保险费为主.     

城乡老年人健身现状与发展对策研究:以宜春市为例

运用社会调查法、文献资料法、数理统计法和逻辑分析法对江西省宜春市城乡老年人参与体育健身现状及特征及特征进行研究,旨在为政府制定体育政策,更好地促进老年体育发展提供参考.     

ATTITUDES TOWARD AGING IN ADULT AND ELDERLY PEOPLE WITH INTELLECTUAL DISABILITY

The main goals of the present study were (a) to investigate three components of attitudes (cognitive, affective, and behavioral) toward aging among adult and elderly people with intellectual disability ( N = 32); (b) to investigate whether there are differences, related to age and level of retardation, in conceptualization of aging; and (c) to examine how people with regular development ( N = 30) and those with intellectual disabilities ( N = 30) differ in their attitudes toward aging. Matching between the groups was according to chronological age. Results indicated that conceptualization of old age is influenced by stereotypes. Cognitively, the subjects focused on physical characteristics. Affectively, old age is seen as threatening. Behaviorally, old people are viewed as helpless and useless. Awareness and understanding of aging increase significantly with age. The scores of the adults with normal development in a semantic differential test were significantly higher than those of their counterparts. The latter focus on physical attributes or on bodily and facial expressions. Social identity theory explains these differences. Educational intervention programs are needed to prepare people with intellectual disability for the later stages of life.     

TURKISH AND U.S. ATTITUDES TOWARD AGING

As people live longer and the number of older adults increases worldwide, it becomes important to understand the factors that influence how we understand and perceive our own aging as well as how we construct our attitudes toward older adults. Although studies have indicated that later adulthood can be a healthy, productive, and satisfying time of life, ageism or prejudice and discrimination against older adults and a fear of the aging process, continues to be a widespread phenomena. The purpose of this study was to compare attitudes and anxieties toward aging of young and middle-aged men and women from the United States and Turkey. The results indicate that significant country and gender differences exist in how people feel about getting older and the age at which they consider themselves to be “old.” Contact with elders as well as education regarding the process of aging appear to have a significant impact on attitudes toward aging.     

社区体育:哈尔滨市健康老龄化的应然选择简

哈尔滨市老年人口的增长具有高龄老人增速加快、多数老人收入偏低、过半数老人身体状况欠佳等特点,老龄化问题突出且严峻。而社区体育的开展有利于老年人合理地利用闲暇时间,形成科学、健康、文明的生活方式,也有利于延缓老龄化进程,从而促进哈尔滨市健康老龄化。     

Older Characters in Teen Movies from 1980–2006

Although children as young as age three have already begun to manifest negative stereotypes toward older adults, attitudes toward older adults likely crystallize during late childhood and adolescence and become entrenched by the time an individual reaches young adulthood. Studies have shown that young people view older people in general as ineffective, dependent, lonely, poor, angry, overly wrinkled, ugly, dirty, disabled, and less physically active and healthy than younger adults. Because today's children and adolescents have less contact with older people than in past decades, it is likely that some young people get most of their information about older people and aging from the media. This is all the more likely during the teen years, when vulnerable adolescents purposely seek out certain media to form their identity. This content analysis examined the 60 most popular teen movies from the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s to determine how older people are portrayed. Older people were greatly underrepresented, according to their numbers in the actual U.S. population, making up only 7% of the total number of characters in teen movies. Older people were marginalized in terms of plot and were likely to be featured only as background characters. Of older characters, 60% were portrayed stereotypically, and only 45% of the older characters were portrayed in a positive manner. Also, 32% of older characters were portrayed in a negative manner, and one-fifth of older characters were portrayed only with negative characteristics. The stereotypes that adolescents today hold toward older people, including the belief that they are bad drivers, are angry most of the time, and are senile, were reflected in older character portrayals in these popular teen films. Given the negative representations of older people that adolescents are exposed to in their childhood and during the teen years, it is no wonder that they express negative attitudes toward older people. After years of exposure to media that negatively depict older adults, adolescents have been cultivated to stereotype older people. This has the potential to influence the quality of their interactions with older people, and also influence the way they come to view the prospect of getting old.     

Ageism: A prejudice touching both young and old

Summary Prejudice and discrimination can be both subtle and blatant. It offends and affects both young and old. If our goal as teacher or caregiver is to guide children to grow up in a world that celebrates diversity and strives to reduce and eventually eliminate destructive forces such as racism and sexism, then we must analyze our homes and clssrooms through a wide-angled lens that allows us to see the presence of ageism and its manifestations. In a society that seems to be increasingly segregated by age, we have a tremendous responsibility to examine ways in which we endorse and teach values regarding the worth and dignity of each human being. We must begin to direct the experiences children have toward the development of positive attitudes toward all people including the elderly. When young children digest behaviors, images, and perceptions, they will begin to form attitudes that have a powerful influence on their present and future behavior. It is only as young and old alike are able to understand and develop healthy attitudes toward their own aging process and cultivate the positive attitudes that allow them to develop intergenerational relationships that they will be able to realize their own full potential.     

应对人口老龄化危机的社会学思考

我国正快速步入老龄化时代,积极思考和探索解决人口老龄化问题具有十分重要的现实意义。人口老龄化对我国经济社会发展影响深远,迫切需要老年人自身、家庭和社会三方的共同努力,全力推进和谐老龄化建设。     

AGING EDUCATION IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS: A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE

From kindergarten to college, as today's students learn to see the world as a global village, they can also learn that aging is part of the human condition, that older people do exist, and that the increasing numbers of older people is both a national resource and a national problem. Students can develop an awareness of the interdependence not only of cultures and countries but also of generations. Still scarce, though increasingly available, are curricular materials and programs that help young people explore how we and other cultures deal with aging and the elderly.     

ATTITUDES TO AGING QUESTIONNAIRES: SOME EVIDENCE FOR POTENTIAL BIAS IN THEIR DESIGN

Questionnaires on attitudes toward aging may contain tacit sources of negative bias by inviting judgments not just on aging but on physical and economic welfare . In the present study, attitudes were assessed after participants (89 psychology first year undergraduates, mean age=25.55, SD=9.11) had been asked either a set of 5 neutral questions, 5 questions on economic welfare of older people, or 5 questions on the physical frailty of older people. The economic questions group had significantly more negative views of mental aspects of aging than did the neutral group. The implication of this finding are discussed.     

AN INTERGENERATIONAL CURRICULAR MODULE FOR TEACHING AGING APPRECIATION TO SEVENTH-GRADERS

The research reported in this paper examines the influence of a one-week curriculum module on aging appreciation of the seventh-graders. Ninety-seven students completed the introductory questionnaire, and 98 students filled out the final questionnaire. A majority of the students were 13 years of age, boys, white, and had living maternal and paternal grandparents who lived in their own homes. T-test analyses revealed that the intervention curricular module showed significant improvement with regard to age perception, number of older people known, personal attributes of older people, and involvement in activities with older people. However, scores dropped significantly for the facts on aging. Several implications for extending this work are discussed.     

USING INTERACTIVE TELEVISION TECHNOLOGY TO DISSEMINATE APPLIED GERONTOLOGICAL INFORMATION

As the number of older people, particularly those 85 and older, continues to increase, older persons themselves, family caregivers, and service providers need coordinated information distilled from gerontological research to cope with the issues and conditions brought about by the aging process in the context of contemporary American society. The State of Michigan, through the Calvin College-Grand Rapids Community College Consortium on Aging, has funded the development of a model regularly-scheduled interactive television series to disseminate gerontological information to support successful independent living for elders. According to studies by the U.S. Bureau of the Census and others, increasingly, more and more middle- and older-aged persons will utilize educational approaches in trying to cope with the changing life circumstances they and their families face as they grow older. This is because the proportion of middle- and older-aged persons with at least a high school education increases with each successive cohort of the population. Professionals in the aging networks on the national and state levels are calling for increased, coordinated information/educational approaches to help people deal with the realities of aging in contemporary American communities. The Administration of Aging has suggested that there is no realistic way the United States will be able to deal effectively with all the ramifications of a rapidly aging society unless communities form partnerships between institutions of higher education and community-based agencies to develop educational strategies in combination with the delivery of key services to empower older people to maintain independent living in their own homes. This model project mobilizes and coordinates resources in a metropolitan area (Grand Rapids/Kent County with over 500,000 people) to educate older and younger persons to grow older independently and successfully through regularly scheduled interactive television programs. These programs focus on the specific issues and resources pertinent to successful aging in contemporary American society.     

中日大学生的老年人责任意识比较

21世纪是全球老龄化的世纪,老年人口数量迅速增加,老龄化程度持续加深,进而导致老年护理需要不断增长。对比同一文化圈的中国、日本的大学生对老年人的印象、态度以及两国大学生的老年人经济赡养,意识、同居意识、老年人护理意识认为中国大学生对老年人责任意识远远高于日本大学生。除了中日两国之间存在的社会制度、文化的差异,孝道的传统教育以及和老年人的实际接触也是影响大学生的老年人责任意识的重要因素。     

INTELLECTUAL VERSUS WISDOM-RELATED KNOWLEDGE: THE CASE FOR A DIFFERENT KIND OF LEARNING IN THE LATER YEARS OF LIFE

Lifelong learning and continued education are essential for older people who want to stay involved in a rapidly changing world. However, in the later years of life, it may be even more important to acquire the timeless and universal knowledge of wisdom. Whereas intellectual knowledge enables elderly people to stay involved in worldly affairs, wisdom-related knowledge helps them to prepare for the physical and social decline of old age and ultimately their own death. Moreover, while intellectual knowledge tends to decrease with advancing age, the relationship between wisdom and aging is potentially positive, provided that cognitive deterioration does not become pathological. By illustrating the difference between intellectual and wisdom-related knowledge in the areas of goals, approach, range, acquisition, effects on the knower, and relation to aging, it is argued that wisdom rather than intellectual knowledge is crucial for aging well.