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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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Changing cultural concepts of old age and their impact on older education in Germany and the USA
— economic versus expressive individualism | | Author(s) | Brigitte Donicht-Fluck |
| Journal title | Education and Ageing, vol 17, nos 2/3, 2002 |
| Pages | pp 169-178 |
| Keywords | Adult Education ; Life satisfaction ; Personality ; Economic status [elderly] ; Comparison ; Germany ; United States of America. |
| Annotation | This article takes its point of departure as the striking difference between the developments of older adult education in Germany and in the US. This difference is attributed not to institutional differences but to different cultural concepts of age. As a context for explaining these differing concepts, the paper draws on the work of the sociologist Robert Bellah and the gerontologist Ronald Manheimer who introduce a useful contrast between two stages of individualisation. While Bellah distinguishes between economic versus expressive individualism as two entirely different forms of self-definition, Manheimer describes the same contrast in the field of older adults education as a struggle between "traditionalists" and "modernists". This paper argues that the dominant concepts of old age in Germany are still very strongly determined by the cultural system of economic individualism, while new forms of elderlearning in the US can be seen as manifestations of expressive individualism and cultural self-empowerment. The question that arises is whether this tendency must be seen as a form of increased egotism. Surprisingly, American developments point in exactly the opposite direction. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-031119203 A |
| Classmark | GP: F:5HH: DK: F:W: 48: 767: 7T |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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