ERIC Number: ED567795
Record Type: Non-Journal
Publication Date: 2016-Mar-24
Pages: 13
Abstractor: As Provided
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There's a New -gogy in Town: Say Goodbye to Educational Inequality and Injustice with Senegogy
Ginley, Kristine
Online Submission, Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Midwest Sociological Society (Chicago, IL, Mar 23-26, 2016)
For the "Baby Boomer" generation, there exists inequality and injustice in education, both in dollars spent on education/programs and in amount of study devoted to their learning needs. "When the first baby boomers turned 65 in 2011, there were just under 77 million baby boomers in the population" (Colby & Ortman, 2014). The total population of the U.S. in 2011 was 310.5 million (Schlesinger, 2011), which made the "Boomers" 24.8% of the population of the U.S. in 2011. Unfortunately, higher education received less than 1% of the total dollars spent on education, and it is unlikely that the dollars were spent on programs or classes for the Boomers. While synegogy, which is defined as elder learning or the study of learning in aging adults, cannot solve the problems of inequality and/or injustice in funding, it can address the problem of too little attention paid to the study of older adults' learning needs. By using Alternative Learning Techniques, which are experiential in nature, and Integrative Learning Techniques, which are memory based, as well as Senior Learning Theory, more can be discovered about the lifelong learning needs and current learning preferences of older adults. Additional research into these theories can help address the issues of educational inequality and injustice as they relate to Boomers. Everyone learns. For hundreds of years, theories about how people learn have been developed. Once people reach adulthood less money and time is invested in learning theories. However, when one-fourth of a population is receiving limited funding and research into their continuing learning needs, people should take notice. There is clearly inequality in funding and, by extension, injustice. Researchers and educators should explore more ways to build and fund programs for aging adults and develop learning theories to address their needs.
Publication Type: Reports - Evaluative; Speeches/Meeting Papers
Education Level: Adult Education
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Language: English
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