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Jennifer Sasser to Travel for Research Project
Dr. Jennifer Sasser, chair of the Human Sciences Department, will travel to London in June to interview Critical Gerontologists for her book project, Living Theory.
Notes from the Living Theory project:
The field of adult learning foregrounds the constructivist nature of learning: The role of experience and reflection; the problem-finding, integrative nature of mature cognition; the importance of timely enactment of new learning; the connections between learning and human development; and the persistent commitment to the idea that adult learners are authors of their own lives.
The life-span/life-course approaches challenge the reductionistic bio-medical model of aging. Aging and development are inter-twined processes that take place throughout the life-course and across and within the total system of the human. There are empirically demonstrable patterns of growth, development and learning that can take place throughout adulthood, even well into advanced old age.
Critical gerontology, which claims a vibrant interdisciplinary space, interrogates the underlying assumptions made about human aging, and the implications of these assumptions for not only how gerontological inquiry is conducted and applied, but for the "inside" experience of aging as well.
Like the life-span/life-course approaches, critical gerontology re-problematizes the adult life course trajectory and is rigorously contextual in its analysis. Consistent with the central assumptions of adult learning theories, critical gerontology focuses on the deep connection between learning and development, and asserts the central force of reflection in learning that has the potential to be transformative — at the individual and socio-cultural levels.
In order to explore the connections between these areas of inquiry and practice, Dr. Sasser instigated the Living Theory Project: a cross-generational co-operative inquiry project and a series of collaborative theorizing conversations with colleagues in the U.S., Canada, and the U.K. At the center of the project is a strong concept, Intentional Aging, a touch-stone idea from which to talk about the ways all of the pieces summarized above might fit together and what the implications for instigating collaborative life-long learning and deep human development might be.