A mudança nas condições de encontro intergeracional na comunidade

: imagens dos idosos expressas pelas crianças

Abstract

The exploratory study that we present, was originated as we observed the worries and reactions of young children when in contact with the elderly population, this study was done in a small town in the North of Portugal.
An Elementry School was placed in the same building as an Elderly Occupational Center, wich means that both groups had to share the same restaurant facilities. These circustances would not made us anticipate what we witnessed, the hesitation and avoidence from the childrens toward the elderly.
Those reactions reased a few questions that this study tries to answer, to help us
understand better the problamatic of the intergenerational relationships. The facts show that these relationships have changed in the past, the changes are more noticeable now due to changes in the family structure, demografic , working and job conditions as well as social policies.
The instucionalization of children and elderly´s has been many times the answer to the problem generated by these changes, with negative consequences to everybody involved.We consider the withdrawal and artificial conditions created by some sporadic initiatives, that intend to promote the intergenerational contact, can make even more visible age discrimination the “ageism”.
The study was devolope to explore the symbolic elements that school age children represented eldrely people and there relationship with them. For this study we analise the childrens drawing as well as their answers to the presented questionary, the children that participated were between the ages of 6 to 10 years old and it was very clear the image that they have of the elderly people, when thought with a roll of grandparents or older people.
We also study the effects of an activity that promotes better intergenerational
relationships with a group of childrens that were part of our investigation. The results show us that, they pictured the elderly in a more positive way after those activities, it was represented in there drawings and questionaries.
This results show us the importance of the past and present experiences, in a public or private context, were people of different generation can interact like contemporary subject that they are, to share and participate in the developing of there comunities.

Date of Award	2012
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Rosa Madeira (Supervisor)