During a time of increasing shortages in the eldercare workforce, attracting new workers to the field is imperative. It can be difficult to engage students in the field. One method to engage students with aging is through oral history assignments. This study explored the impact of an active assignment (interviewing an older adult) compared to a…

The population of older adults is growing rapidly and there will be an increased need for psychological services for this population. Current estimates indicate a significant workforce gap such that all psychologists, regardless of specialty area, will likely be called upon to work with older adults. Education and experience in the care of older…

Growing older is a natural occurrence experienced by all human beings, but a plurality of perspectives influences how understanding aging deviates in multiple context. Senescence now enthuses a profound substantiation to appreciate harmonious aging. Among the diverse corpora of data, songs are found to be useful in communicating, motivating and…

The aim of the article is to understand ageing as a process of lifelong learning through a whole variety of experiences, to consider what ageing in a biographical perspective means, and to investigate the process of biographical ageing within identity formation. The method of the project was based on the employment of in-depth narrative interviews…

Most of the studies exploring social work education's impact on working with older adults (OA) examine intentions among students. This study goes beyond expressed intention and focuses upon the actual post-graduation career choices of 20 cohorts (1996-2016) of BSW graduates of an OA concentration at an Israeli school of social work. The 203 study…

The rise in older population in Ghana is accompanied by challenges that may require trained professionals with specialized knowledge in geriatrics and gerontology to help address. Research, however, points to an existing shortage of geriatric-trained professionals in Ghana; a problem that can be addressed with the education and training of…

The Geriatric Social Work Competency Scale II is the leading measure of students' competency with older adults. Although the 40-item instrument has demonstrated strong internal consistency and congruent validity, the hypothesized four-factor structure has not been tested. We used confirmatory factor analysis with a sample of social work students…

This article presents an interdisciplinary collaboration to address the needs of older adults at risk of social isolation exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. An intergenerational service-learning program developed by the Pennsylvania Department of Aging was offered to several universities across the state of Pennsylvania. The authors share their…

Objective: To describe the creation of an educational podcast with 'living cases' of older adults to support students' learning on a gerontology course and report on students' evaluation of the project. Setting: Gerontology course in a graduate programme. Method: We developed a podcast series based on interviews with older adults in the community…

This article focuses on the impact of pandemic- related reorganization on the lived experiences of economically vulnerable older adults receiving food assistance. Thematic analysis of life narrative interviews from ninety older adults suggests three focal types of disruptions produced by policy, program, and system innovations: social, resource,…

Ageism is an age-based form of discrimination that still prevails in our modern society. As other forms of discrimination, older adults may encounter ageist discourses in a variety of contexts, including health care settings. In this paper, we consider critical reflexivity as an approach to challenge ageism within health care contexts. We explore…

The purpose of this study was to examine the experience of Senior Companions with telephone reassurance program training delivered via Zoom and the feasibility of using teleconferencing as a platform for training older adult volunteers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Volunteers were recruited from a local Senior Companion Program. We assessed…

In this keynote presentation given at the 2016 Association for Interdisciplinary Studies conference, I considered the field of gerontology from a transdisciplinary perspective. Juxtaposing personal narratives with dominant and alternative discourses on issues of aging, later life, and old age, I explored such questions as: Given the multifaceted,…

Purpose: Although it has been proposed that 1 spouse's health behaviors might correlate with the other spouse's health behavior among married couples, few studies have focused on sedentary behavior. This study examined whether objectively measured sedentary behavior and physical activity are correlated with each other and whether attachment to…

This paper considers the significance of exploring the experiences and perspectives of older people who choose to participate in nature-based physical activities in evocative and imaginative ways. It highlights the need for research in outdoor studies to take seriously the turn to the body and the senses that is occurring in much social science…