Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T00:23:50.808Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Mutuality of Learning Between the Old and the Young: A Case Study in Israel

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 November 2008

Ora Cibulski  and
Simon Bergman
Simon Bergman
Affiliation:
School of Social Work, University of Tel-Aviv, Ramat-Aviv, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

An exploratory study examines the knowledge of old people, their past and present teaching-learning experiences with children, and their readiness to teach children in the future. The respondents to structured-interviews are 76 old people from three cultural groups in Israel: Europeans, Yemenite-Tunisians and Christian-Arabs. Old people have many kinds of knowledge: occupational skills; formal, general and religious knowledge; personal experience and traditions of the ethnic group. Old people who perceive of themselves as knowledgeable and competent, who have frequent contacts with school-age children (particularly their own grandchildren), who reside in communities that support the social norm of communication between the generations, have had positive experiences teaching children and are prepared to teach children in the future. Old people who teach children, integrate then- past experiences, enhance their self-esteem and provide alternative behavioural models to children.

Type
Research Article
Information
Ageing & Society , Volume 1 , Issue 2 , July 1981 , pp. 247 - 262
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1981

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

NOTES

1 Clark, M. and Anderson, B. G., Culture and Aging, Thomas, Charles C., Springfield, I11., 1967.Google Scholar

2 Olsen, N. J., ‘The Role of Grandmother in Taiwanese Family Socialization’, Journal of Marriage and Family, 28, 2, 1976, pp. 363–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 Palmore, E., The Honorable Elders, Duke University Press, Durham, N.C., 1975.Google Scholar

4 Moody, H. R., 'Education and the Life Cycle: a Philosophy of Aging, in Sherron, R. H. and Lumsden, D. B. (eds), Introduction to Educational Gerontology, Hemisphere Press, London, 1978.Google Scholar

5 McClusky, H. Y., 'The Community of Generations: a Goal and a Context for the Education of Persons in the Later Years, in Sherron R. H. and Lumsden D. B. (eds), Introduction to Educational Gerontology, 1978.Google Scholar

6 Birren, J. E., ‘Psychological Development and Autobiography’. Colloquium Lecture, University of Michigan, 25 01 1978. (Reported by McClusky (5)).Google Scholar

7 Covey, H. C., ‘An Exploratory Study of the Acquisition of a College Student Role by Older People’, Gerontologist, 20, 2, 1980, pp. 173–81.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

8 Hirsch, H., 'Higher Education in Retirement: The Institute for Retired Professionals, International Journal of Aging and Human Development, 8, 4, 1977–1980, PP. 367–73.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

9 Cline, A., ‘Bar-Ilan's Brookdale Program where it is never too late to learn, Israel Digest, 12 14, 1979.Google Scholar

10 Cibulski, O. and Sabo, E., Survey of Retired Auditors of Courses at Haifa University in 1979–80 (Hebrew), Research Report, Haifa University, Haifa, Israel, 1980.Google Scholar

11 Mead, M., ‘Grandparents as Educators’, Teacher's College Record, 2, 1974, pp. 240–9.Google Scholar

12 Neugarten, B. L. and Weinstein, C., ‘The Changing American Grandparent’, Journal of Marriage and the Family, 26, 1964, 199–204.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13 Robertson, J. E.Grandmotherhood: a Study of Role Conceptions, Journal of Marriage and the Family, 39, 1977, 165–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14 Looft, W. R., ‘Perceptions Across the Life Span of Important Informational Sources for Children and Adolescents’, Journal of Psychology, 78, 1971, pp. 207–216.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

15 Bergman, S. and Cibulski, O., ‘Schoolchildren's Attitudes Toward Learning from Older People: a Case Study in Israel’, Educational Gerontology: an International Quarterly, 5, 1980, pp. 259–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

16 Mehta, M., ‘How to be a Grandperson’, National Record of the Teacher Association, 1976, pp. 59–69.Google Scholar

17 Saltz, R., ‘Evaluation of a Foster Grandparent Program’, in Kadushin, A. (ed.), Child Welfare Services: a Sourcebook, McMillan, New York, 1970.Google Scholar

18 Cibulski, O., ‘Social Support Networks of the Elderly’. Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation, University of Tel-Aviv, Tel-Aviv, 1981.Google Scholar

19 Tamir, L. M., ‘Communicative Interaction and the Aged’, in Tamir, L. M., Communication and the Aging Process: Interaction Throughout the Life Cycle, Pergamon Press, New York, 1979.Google Scholar

20 The interview schedules for the old people were cooperatively worked out, but adapted to the Israel situation. The major conceptual approach concerning dimension of time – past, present and future – remained intact in both the Canadian and Israeli studies.

21 Marcus, L., ‘Learning and Teaching between Old and Young: Views of the Old’. Research Report, McGill University, Montreal, 1976.Google Scholar

22 Robertson, J. E., ‘Interaction in Three-generation Families: Parents as Mediators: Towards a Theoretical Perspective’, International Journal of Aging and Human Development, 6, 1975, pp. 165–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

23 Cans, H. J., The Urban Villagers, Free Press, New York, 1962.Google Scholar

24 Boyd, R. R., ‘Emerging Roles of the Four-Generational Family’, in Boyd, R. R. and Oakes, C. G. (eds), Foundations of Practical Gerontology, University of South Carolina Press, Columbia, S.C., 1969.Google Scholar

25 Simmons, L., The Role of the Aged in Primitive Society, Yale University Press, New Haven, Conn., 1945.Google Scholar