Learning Together: Our Reflections on Connecting People and Practices in Intergenerational Meaning-Making Experiences

Abstract

This article is a reflection on our experiences as researchers / research assistants in five different intergenerational settings. We envision the entangled nature of connections in intergenerational meaning making and explore this theme of connection as it occurs between people (children and elders) and across meaning-making practices. We identify three principles that support meaning making in both intergenerational and monogenerational settings.

The Development of a Coding Scheme for Intergenerational Learning and Its Application to the Patterns of Intergenerational Collaborative Communication

“…There has been accumulating attention paid and efforts made to investigate the advantages of having older and younger generations learn together across different countries (e.g., Boström, 2014 ; Franz and Scheunpflug, 2016 ; Spiteri, 2016 ; Gerpott et al, 2017 ; McKee and Scheffel, 2019 ; Sun et al, 2019 ; Yin et al, 2019 ; Santini et al, 2020 ). For example, Santini et al ( 2020 ) conducted an intergenerational learning program in Germany, Italy, and Slovenia focusing on the field of organization and employment.…”

“…Previous research on observing interaction among individuals mainly focused on couples and family members (e.g., Gottman and Driver, 2005 ; Darling et al, 2008 ; Friedlander et al, 2019 ). Studies on intergenerational partners and their interaction processes have, however, been accumulating because of the growing need for social structure (McKee and Scheffel, 2019 ; Sun et al, 2019 ; Yin et al, 2019 ).…”