| New book offers blueprint for combating ageism |
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Aging Awakenings by Richard C. Adelman, Ph.D. argues that carefully tailored interaction between generations overcomes stereotypes
ANN ARBOR, Mich. (MMD Newswire) February 10, 2010 -- Aging Awakenings by Richard C. Adelman, Ph.D. demonstrates how intergenerational learning can diminish ageism by demystifying elderly people for the younger generation. According to Adelman, the acceptance of misleading stereotypes about elderly individuals, such as forgetfulness and the inability to continue to learn, is a pervasive problem in Western society. Aging Awakenings works to examine how educational efforts could improve attitudes towards seniors by creating a better awareness of the similarity of capabilities, interests, needs, opinions and personalities across generations. With this in mind, the book seeks to present the impact of the elderly residing in an independent and assisted living facility dedicated to lifelong learning amongst college students in Ann Arbor. Selected students and residents offer candid personalized accounts of their interactions, above and beyond Adelman's more traditional analyses of collected data. "Ageism remains one of the most socially condoned forms of prejudice throughout the Western world today," Adelman says. "The achievements of the program described in this book offer a means to combat ageism broadly." In order to test his theory, Adelman enabled young and older participants to interact with each other as fellow students in classroom-like settings. Study themes ranged from the U.S. culture wars to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to generational attitudes toward opera. He sought to simultaneously catalyze intimate personal friendships across generations by assignment of one-on-one student and resident partnerships. These relationships sparked frank discussions of love and sex, death and dying, career and family. The fundamental lesson that Adelman hopes the students learned about the residents is "they were us and we will become them." Aging Awakenings is available for sale online at Amazon.com and other channels. About the Author MEDIA CONTACT: REVIEW COPIES AND INTERVIEWS AVAILABLE ### The views and opinions expressed in this press release do not necessarily represent the views and opinions of CreateSpace or its affiliates |