Ageist mindsets and practices occur worldwide and can embody both explicit and implicit forms of discrimination. Inclusive and affirming community music spaces highlight the centrality of age as an integral form of diversity and can help to counteract age-based biases that older adults might experience in society.

Ageism is highly prevalent, especially among college students. However, efforts to reduce ageism largely take place in helping professions. This activity seeks to promote positive perceptions toward older adults and aging among communication undergraduate students through gerontological education, a positive intergeneration contact experience, a…

This paper reflects on the ecofeminist educational implications of research findings about Australia's Knitting Nannas' Against Gas and Greed (a.k.a. The Nannas') experiences of peer-to-peer, environmental activist learning. Aspects of this unique and successful suite of informal learning practices devised by the Nannas guided by their Nannafesto,…

As life expectancy in the United States continues to increase, there is a need to enhance interest and competency in working with older adults. There have been efforts to do so in recent years, but research indicates that there are barriers, such as lack of awareness and negative perceptions of aging. This qualitative study examines the…

A rapid demographic transition to aging populations is imminent over the next decade, especially in Southeast Asian countries. An aging population presents a host of medical challenges, such as multimorbidity; chronic illnesses; and geriatric syndromes, such as frailty, falls, dementia, and incontinence. In order to tackle such issues efficiently,…

Adult students are generally classified as a single group for study, yet developmental psychologists recognize separate developmental periods during adulthood that suggest adult students at midlife may experience development within higher education differently that younger adult students, in part due to ageism expressed at individual,…

This study undertakes a comparative analysis of the negative stereotypes of older persons described by young and older adult university students at the University of Castilla-La Mancha. This study is innovative in that it compares three analytical perspectives: the perception of young students (18-27 years); the perception of older adult students…

This article proposes an exploratory application of the principles of critical geragogy (Formosa, 2002, 2011, 2012) to foreign language (FL) education (i.e., L2 learning in the L1 community). Critical geragogy is an educational, practical framework intended to empower older adults and lead them to emancipate from age strictures (Glendenning &…

This paper examines ageism among older students in U.S. higher education. Ageism involves any uncalled-for reaction to any age and does not require racism and sexism to exist. Social closure theory is the research framework used in this analysis. The theory posits that specific parties (i.e., in-groups) gain benefits by closing off favorable…

The number of U.S. citizens ages 65 years and older is steadily increasing, and members of this cohort are redefining what it means to be an older adult. As members of the Baby Boom generation reach older adulthood, many of them are seeking educational opportunities to help them to meet their needs and desires as lifelong learners. Several factors…

Encouraging older workers to stay in the workforce has become a policy priority, not least because the life expectancy of Australians has increased dramatically over the past several decades, effectively inserting a new stage in life, often called the "third age." This report explores the possibility of using that third age to embark on…

Women returners are women who leave the paid workforce for a period of time following the birth of their child(ren) and subsequently seek to return to paid employment. As women returners attempt to re-enter the workforce, many of them are in need of updating their skills or re-training in a new set of skills. In this study, the training and…

Social work students and faculty are increasingly embracing online education and collaborative teaching. Yet models to support these activities have not been adequately developed. This paper describes how a team of instructors developed, delivered, and evaluated an undergraduate gerontological social work course using a collaborative online…

Previous research confirms that many employees work in jobs not well matched to their skills and education, resulting in lower pay and job satisfaction. While this literature typically uses cross-sectional data, we examine the evolution of mismatch and its consequences over a career, by using a panel data set of scientists in the USA. The results…

Through an eighty-one-year-old woman's literacy narrative, I argue that literacy researchers should pay greater attention to elder writers, readers, and learners. Particularly as notions of literacy shift in digital times, the perspective of a lifespan can reveal otherwise hidden complexities of literacy, including the motivational impact of…