Centre for Policy on Ageing



The "Positively Aging" teaching materials improve middle school students' images of older people
Author(s)	Michael J Lichtenstein, Linda A Pruski, Carolyn E Marshall
Journal title	The Gerontologist, vol 41, no 3, June 2001
Pages	pp 322-333
Keywords	Ageing process ; Teaching aids ; Schoolchildren ; Attitudes to the old of general public ; United States of America.
Annotation	The "Positively Aging" programme is a set of interdisciplinary teaching materials which uses examples from gerontology and geriatrics to improve elements of the middle school curriculum, and to change students' images of older people. At the beginning of the 1998/99 school year, children from two schools in San Antonio, Texas were asked to draw a typical older person. Drawings were coded as positive, neutral or negative. One school used the Positively Aging materials, while the other served as a control. Second drawings done at the end of the school year were compared with those done originally. Of 782 paired drawings from the intervention school, 34% were more positive at time 2, compared with 25% of 591 paired drawings from the control school. The study demonstrated the extent to which the Positively Aging materials and activities moved American middle school students toward a more positive view of older people and of ageing. (RH).
Accession Number	CPA-010718214 A
Classmark	BG: VF: SBM: TOB: 7T
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...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing.