AGEING IDENTITY AND EDUCATION—THE ROLE OF EDUCATIONAL GUIDANCE IN THE THIRD AGE

摘要

Research on late-life learning emphasizes its contributions to wellbeing, autonomy and inclusion in older age (Jenkins & Mostafa 2015), and even though participation rates in adult education in most European countries are rising (UNESCO 2013), senior education can’t yet be considered a fundamental part of older adults’ lifestyles. Policy has discovered the concept of educational guidance to attend to this challenge (CEDEFOP, 2009), but its role for retired adults is yet to be researched.Taking a cultural gerontological approach, this paper analyzes how older adults perceive and construct the role of education and guidance for their own doing of age. Analyzing 15 qualitative interviews with retired adults (57–75 years), we explore the role education and activity play in identity management and how guidance can open possibilities for new forms of education and ageing.Results show an ambiguity of ageing as an experience of ‘late freedom’ on the one hand and fear of health decline, often accompanied by social and spatial disengagement on the other. Older age as a time of freedom is perceived as a life-stage of self-management. This perspective opens potential for guidance as individual coaching. Older age as physical decline is perceived as a biological determination that needs to be postponed as long as possible. This perspective opens potential for guidance as preparation for the transition to fourth age. Both perspectives follow, however, a determinist logic that calls for a third potential of guidance, namely the reflection of images of ageing that facilitate a humanization of older age.