Study by and education for the elderly

• Tarja Tikkanen Jyväskylän yliopisto
• Jan-Erik Ruth Kuntokallio (vanhustyön koulutus- ja tutkimuskeskus)
• Jorma Kuusinen Jyväskylän yliopisto

DOI: https://doi.org/10.33336/aik.96936

Abstract

Right up to the present, study by the elderly has focused mainly on general adult education. Consequently, marginalisation in this area has been particularly harmful to this section of the population, the people who have received the least education in our society. The motives and points of departure concerning the elderly have not yet been clearly formulated in adult education. This state of affairs is exemplified by the facts that adult education policy statements almost entirely by-pass the issue of education for the elderly and that an educational policy aimed at the elderly simply does not exist. The elderly can no longer be expected to be satisfied with mere activities for the sake of activity and to make the time go by. Educators and researchers must now ask themselves the question, what is the education these people require.
ln their assessment of the current state of educational gerogogics, the authors point out that although educational services aimed at the elderly are constantly increasing in scope, and more and more people are making use of them, theory and practice are far from going hand-in-hand in the case of education for the elderly.