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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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Learning in later life and the construction of meaning
— biographical research and the 'signposts of life' | | Author(s) | Malgorzata Malec |
| Journal title | International Journal of Education and Ageing, vol 2, no 3, 2012 |
| Publisher | Association for Education and Ageing, 2012 |
| Pages | pp 197-210 |
| Source | http://www.associationforeducationandageing.org |
| Keywords | Immigration ; Poland ; Memory and Reminiscence ; Biographies ; Methodology ; Sweden. |
| Annotation | Initial outcomes are presented from biographical research with a group of Polish older immigrants in Sweden, in which they ascribe connections and meaning of their life experience, described as 'signposts of life'. This article proposes a three-part model of learning to be old, and argues that, in an ageing society, it is relevant for all age groups to consider preparation for being old in a positive way, and to reconstruct notions of later life in terms of the opportunities it presents for reflective wisdom. The article discusses the purposes and methods of biographical research as dialogue between researcher and narrator, and indicates that the process of communicating a narrative can be both a reflective and a learning experience for the narrator. After presenting a range of 'signposts of life' drawn from the words of the narrators interviewed, the article concludes that these interviews validate the notion of learning to be old. The construction of meaning in later life by older people makes available to those younger the outcomes of a lifetime of learning from experience. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-180316221 A |
| Classmark | TNP: 7AE: DB: 67: 3D: 76P |
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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