Understanding Intergenerational Relationships in India

ABSTRACT

This paper makes an attempt to describe the status and role of elderly within the family and community institutions as a source of wisdom and knowledge, particularly to have an understanding of the intergenerational relationships in the Indian context. As the countries and areas of Asia develop economically and become more heavily urban, the familial support of the elderly has eroded. There are a number of reasons to think that traditional systems of familial care for the elderly in Asia have started to reflect this changing scenario in terms of increasing problems for the elderly. The Indian subcontinent too has experienced these transitional changes. But despite the changes in the structures and functions of Indian societies, families do preserve the norms of social hierarchy (of which the elderly are an important part), cultural styles and mode of living. At the same time elderly who are regarded as the sources of wisdom and knowledge are given due respect and place in the society within the ambit of the family and community contexts.     

Retrospective Views of Intergenerational Relationships

Abstract

CHILDHOOD AND OLD AGE, EQUALS OR OPPOSITES? Edited by Jørgen Povlsen, Signe Mellemgaard and Ning de Conick-Smith. Odense: Odense University Press, 1999. Reviewed by Ann-Kristin Boström

THE DAY GOGO WENT TO VOTE. Elinor Batezat Sisulu. Cape Town & New York: Tafelberg Publishers, 1996. Reviewed by Suzanne Stutman

THE STEPFAMILY PUZZLE: INTERGENERATIONAL INFLUENCES. Edited by Craig A. Everett. Binghamton, New York: The Haworth Press, Inc., 1993. Reviewed by Wilma Wolfenstein

MALE INTERGENERATIONAL INTIMACY: HISTORICAL, SOCIOPSYCHOLOGICAL, AND LEGAL PERSPECTIVES. Edited by Theo Sandfort, Edward Brongersma and Alex van Naerssen. New York: Harrington Park Press, 1991. Reviewed by H. P. F. Mercken     

Making Connections: Community Organizing,Empowerment Planning,and Participatory Research in Participatory Evaluation

This article shows the intersections of participatory research, popular education, empowerment planning, and community organizing with participatory evaluation. It argues that a truly successful participatory evaluation involves participants in guiding and even conducting the research, doing a process of self- and program study, creating plans for change, and organizing themselves for implementing these plans. Next, the chapter shows how these elements played out in a participatory evaluation of a community organizing training and technical assistance project in Toledo, Ohio. The first year of the project was facilitated by participatory evaluation that helped identify early successes and problems so participants could make programmatic changes early in the process. The telling of the story also develops practices of participatory evaluation, including planning the evaluation, doing the research and adapting it to changing conditions, uncovering creative tensions, participatory validity checking, and linking the process to planning and action. The chapter concludes with some lessons for participatory evaluation practice.     

Birth Mothers Now Birth Grandmothers: Intergenerational Relationships in Open Adoptions

Abstract

Despite growing trends in openness between birth and adoptive families, little is known about what happens when adopted children become parents and birth mothers become birth grandmothers. These new and unique relationships between birth mothers and their grandchildren were examined through intensive case study analyses of in-depth interviews with birth mothers who placed infants for adoption more than 25?years ago (N?=?11). Findings revealed enjoyment in their role as grandmothers and emphasized the significant role the adult adoptee (parent) played in influencing communication with their grandchild and families’ incorporation of technology-mediated contact to overcome geographic barriers. Implications for practitioners, policy makers, and researchers are discussed.     

Cambodian Refugee Families: Impacts of Immigration-Related Stressors on Intergenerational Relationships

The purpose of this study was to elucidate Cambodian refugees’ perceptions of immigration-related stressors and their impacts on intergenerational relations during the processes of immigration and settlement. We used narrative analysis to evoke older immigrants’ voices as they transitioned to the United States. Thirty-one Cambodian immigrants were interviewed using open-ended interview guides informed by ethnographic tenets of data collection. Participants expressed (a) changes in family structure and elder isolation and (b) intergenerational ambivalence and elder’s dependence on adult children as products of immigration-related stressors. Implications of these results for refugee and immigrant mental health research are discussed.     

Intergenerational Influences on Perceptions of Current Relationships with Grandparents

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to investigate inter-generational kinship variables as predictors of perceptions of current grandparent-grandchild relationship quality. A lifecourse perspective is used to demonstrate the need for consideration of the GP-GCH relationship within a three-generational, dynamic framework linking the past and present. Matrifocal kinkeeping, lineage and caregiving history hypotheses are tested in the current study. Responses from a combined sample of 321 young adult grandchildren about their relationships with their parents and all living grandparents provide the basis for the present research. GP-GCH relationship quality is the dependent variable under consideration, which combines perceived emotional closeness and frequency of contact with each of the four possible grandparent types. Independent variables tested include caregiving by grandparents during childhood, young adults' current relationship quality with mothers and fathers, and mothers' and fathers' relationships with parents and in-laws, as appropriate. Using stepwise multiple regression, GP-GCH relationship quality is predicted by a history of caregiving for the grandchild by the grandparent in question, as well as direct lineage connections, with mothers' relationships with their children and parents influencing grandchildren's relationships with maternal grandparents, and fathers' relationships with their parents and children showing similar patterns for grandchildren's relationships with paternal grandparents. The present data provide support for lineage and caregiving history hypotheses rather than matrifocal kinkeeping as predictors of intergenerational kinship patterns.     

The Impact of AIDS on Intergenerational Relationships in Africa

Abstract

This paper describes die impact of AIDS on intergenerational relationships in Africa (especially Sub-Saharan Africa). The AIDS infection in Sub-Saharan Africa has expanded astronomically with up to 18.5 million living with the disease. Young adults between the ages of 14 and 49 are most likely to be infected. In the countries of Sub-Saharan Africa, three levels of HIV/AIDS infection among adults can be identified-hardest hit, high, and moderate. This ranges from 3.6% for moderate level to 35.8% for the hardest hit. The situation has changed the youth population profile and has numerous quality of life implications for young people, older adults, and a multi-dimensional impact on community life.

With the adverse socioeconomic and psychological effect of AIDS, interactions between members of the different generations are made difficult-relationships are becoming more of a burden than a mutual source of satisfaction. Children and young adults are losing their parents and mentors, and sometimes have to take care of their infected and dying parents at a very early stage in life. The older population is now losing its social and economic support, which hitherto, they have drawn from their adult children, and at the same time, they are assuming a new caregiving role to either their infected and affected children or grandchildren, or both.

Hope exists if the trend is checked by AIDS prevention efforts with examples drawn from countries like Uganda, Senegal, and Nigeria. But since there are some victims already, efforts should be made to help them cope with the stress and adverse effects of the disease. Governmental policies should also aim at assisting victims and volunteers financially. As part of the strategy, intergenerational relationships at family, organizational and community levels should be strengthened. Reinforcing the value of being one's “brother's keeper” both as individuals and groups/organizations is crucial at this time of crisis.     

Relationships and the Research Process: Participatory Action Research and Social Work

Social science research methods are experiencing a paradigm shift in that participatory research methods, in many cases relegated to second-class status, are gaining credibility as valid and legitimate ways to engage in scholarly and solid research. In social work, participatory research is one more way social workers can engage with participants as partners in the process of generating knowledge and transforming society. This article discusses a particular type of participatory research called Participatory Action Research (PAR). PAR is explained and an example of how PAR has been used is offered. This article offers a discussion of how PAR is consistent with the core values of social work, especially those values of partnership, relationship, and social change. Finally, the article offers social work researchers a framework for engaging in liberatory research.     

Intergenerational Relationships and Affectual Solidarity Between Grandparents and Young Adults

This study examines whether both parents’ relationships with their offspring, parents, and parents‐in‐law matter for young adults’ perceptions of closeness to grandparents. This study focuses on two groups of grandchildren (ages 18 – 23) in Wave 2 of the National Survey of Families and Households: young adults with married biological parents (N = 442) and those whose biological mother is not married to their biological father (N = 399). Findings suggest that it is important to examine grandparent‐grandchild ties within a complete kinship network. Parents’ relationships with the grandchild and grandparent generations were associated with the grandparent‐grandchild bond. In support of the kinkeeping perspective, mothers’ intergenerational ties across lineage lines appeared to be more influential for grandparent‐grandchild relationships than fathers’.     

Challenging Gerontophobia and Ageism Through a Collaborative Intergenerational Art Program

Prejudices against older adults have been shown to reduce effective care delivery and impact long-term health outcomes for older adults. In an effort to combat these prejudices, intergenerational—and often unidirectional—programs focus on challenging ageism. The PALETTE program takes this further to employ collaborative activities as a way to challenge the gerontophobia that often accompanies ageism. Promoting Art for Life Enrichment Through Transgenerational Engagement (PALETTE) is an innovative program for interprofessional undergraduate and graduate students that combines intergenerational arts activities with formal education on aging, ageism, and gerontophobia. Having demonstrated success in changing the attitudes of students, PALETTE serves as a model for an internationally replicable program that has the potential to improve person-centered care while educating future generations of older adults about positive, optimal aging.     

Aging in Timorese Exile: (Im)mobilities of Care and Intergenerational Relationships

ABSTRACT

This paper discusses transnational care and border regimes in the context of the East Timorese exile in rural Indonesia. Drawing from multi-sited ethnographic research, it explores the ways older people cope with family separation and life in exile, their aspirations, when and how transnational care becomes “on hold”, and how they deal with the impossibility of meeting intergenerational and cultural obligations. Analyzing care using the lens of “circulation”, the paper attends to the asymmetries entailed in intergenerational relationships as well as to how uneven power relations of border regimes shape transnational care exchanges. In the context of “aging in exile”, the paper underlines the importance of understanding older persons’ narratives as they are linked with the ambivalences of other family members across generations. The paper argues that the forms of immobility withholding or limiting caregiving can transcend physical boundaries. They can include the social and emotional borders conflict-divided communities build against one another over time. These “imaginary” borders require us to think about the additional asymmetries entailed in precarious familial relations and how this affects the multiple meanings of care in the context of contemporary border regimes and amid enduring legacies of violence.     

Building Pedagogical and Activist Relationships

As a white professor who teaches courses that deal primarily with the issue of race, the question of whether pedagogy and activism mix is ever present in my mind. The answer to this question is of course complicated and yet, I answer affirmatively. Drawing upon social movement theory and the central tenets of critical pedagogy, I argue that pedagogy and activism can work very well together in the classroom, but that my allegiance to a critical pedagogy does present some necessary constraints on my classroom activism.     

Building a Humane Society for Older People: Compassionate Policy Making for Integration,Participation, and Positive Ageing Within a Framework of Intergenerational Solidarity

This article explores the global challenge of population aging with a specific focus on the concepts of integration and participation of older people in society within the context of “realizing a society for all ages” as promoted by the United Nations. It is proposed that governments worldwide need to embrace new ways of thinking about population aging that include strategic initiatives for strengthening the social contract that fosters generational interdependence. The meaning of “positive aging” is explored at both the individual and social levels, with implications for quality-of-life issues involving intergenerational relationships. The point is made that while the promotion of positive aging is commendable on both philosophical and health grounds it can be problematic for those older people who for a range of legitimate reasons are unable to fulfill the notion of positive or active aging. The longevity revolution will require the emergence of a more humane society that undertakes to reconceptualize what older age means, together with exploring new ways of enhancing the citizenship status of older people through the development and promotion of innovative intergenerational relationships. A call is made for a wider engagement of the citizenry in the processes involved in the formulation and implementation of policy making.     

Experiences of Grandparenting Disabled Children in the UK: A Qualitative Study of Intergenerational Relationships

Contemporary patterns of family, work, and welfare make the experience of grandparenting complex and diverse. This UK-based qualitative study aimed to explore grandparenting in the context of childhood disability. Nine grandparents (aged 59–79 years) with disabled and non-disabled grandchildren took part in semi-structured interviews. Grandparents provided extensive instrumental and emotional care and support and sought a balance between involvement versus interfering. Grandparents actively drew on life experiences to engage with services to maximize support. Contemplating the future, grandparents had concerns for adult children as well as grandchildren. Developing policies to support grandparents of disabled grandchildren are urgently required.     

A Field in Search of Concepts: The Relevance of Generativity to Understanding Intergenerational Relationships

Intergenerational relationships are increasingly recognized as an important field of practice and research. However, it has been argued that appropriate concepts and theories are still required to guide and consolidate the discipline. Although a number of concepts borrowed from the social sciences have been used with some success thus far, few attempts have been made to conceptualize intergenerational relationships from a psychological and developmental perspective. This article explores the usefulness of the Eriksonian concept of generativity as a framework for understanding intergenerational relationships. We describe the contribution of generativity to the intergenerational field and we explore the prospects, limitations, and potential of this contribution.