Teaching and Learning in Later Life by Frank Glendenning

Author:Frank Glendenning [Glendenning, Frank]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781138721821
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2019-11-25T00:00:00+00:00

Attitudinal and political obstacles

As an illustration of the kind of obstacles which may be encountered in the search for the removal of discriminatory practices two areas of particular relevance will be explored: one concerns attitudinal and cognitive explanations for the so-called legitimacy of adverse discrimination; the other relates to the denuding of the political status of older people by denying issues germane to their welfare from entering the political arena.

Educational gerontology has as one element the task to combatting any misinformation about older people which supports adverse discrimination. As this activity constitutes an important part of the supporting case it is important to account for the persistence of adverse discriminatory practices and beliefs. It is certain that a degree of sheer prejudice exists but that only affects a small proportion of those supporting such practices. The majority tend to argue that their attitudes and beliefs about older people have rational foundations. If they are mistaken, how do they obtain their beliefs? Extending the perceptive discussion in Levine (Levine, 1988, chap.16) the term ‘cognitive error’ is introduced to account for at least some of the reasons for holding age-discriminatory beliefs.

Cognitive error theory draws attention to the common practice of what has been classified as ‘satisfying’, that is the ready acceptance by individuals or groups of partial explanations for the existence of particular social phenomena. As the partial explanation seems to offer an adequate response for immediate purposes to question it would involve delay and possibly further investigation. This practice is a widespread phenomenon of both private and public discussion and intrudes into official rhetoric and documentation. In consequence it becomes easy for inadequate explanations or beliefs to achieve a spurious validity.

This phenomenon has particular relevance in regards to beliefs about and attitudes towards older people. When making judgements people tend to draw upon pre-existing beliefs, theories, attitudes and values as a method of making sense of their life-worlds. In part this involves the acceptance of stereotypes which are culturally and socially transmitted and which become part of their conceptual universe. They are readily adopted because of their wide acceptance and this fact is frequently cited as an important justification for their validity. Having adopted them, there can be a biased assimilation of evidence, that is evidence which collects examples of behaviour which supports the adopted stereotypes and discounts any which runs counter to them. These stereotypes along with generalisations, that is the ascription to a person of the characteristics of a group without any form of individualised assessment, are taken to constitute factually based judgements. People holding them are in principle acting rationally but on the basis of incorrect or misleading information. Where they are plainly false or misleading it is part of the task of educational gerontology to counter them. This is not a trivial activity for disparaging stereotypes of older people widely persists, not least among older people themselves who have been seduced by their spurious validity. To counter them is part of a programme of restoring the status of older people.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.