La educación en la vejezfundamentos y retos de futuro

Abstract

The aims of education for the elderly go beyond the limits of an idea based on attendance and/or training. From this starting point, the education of the elderly can be increasingly considered a reality immersed in a process of consolidation. This work pursues two basic goals: on the one hand, analyzing three notions that can help build the conceptual web regarding the relations existing between education and the old age, that is, interactive education, intergenerational education and critical reflectiveness; on the other hand, signalling some of the challenges that the disciplinal frame in education for the elderly should face up to in order to consolidate the educational discourse in this stage of life. The development of this work comes from a short description of the goals that require educational attention towards the elderly. The following is an approach to the conceptual and practical applications of the concepts "interactive education", "intergenerational education" and "critical reflectiveness".These three concepts provide old age education with the keys that support the arguments on which they are based, methodological statements of educational praxis and the type of educator required. There are two important challenges in the consolidation of the educational dimension of aging: firstly, the promotion of qualitative researches that gather together the voices and views of the protagonists and secondly, the training of future professionals to make them able to reflect and research on their own practice. Finally, the conclusions of the above reflection are briefly explained.