Programa educativo para fomentar actitudes positivas en adolescentes hacia los mayores

Abstract

The work was carried out for three purposes. The first, to design and apply a training session for teenagers to change their attitude towards the elderly; secondly, find out whether the pedagogical action positively changes teenagers' attitudes; lastly, analyse the opinions of both students and other members of the centre's educational community, teachers and parents, about the world of the elderly, the attitudes towards them and old age. An ethnographic case study was used, from the qualitative approximation of the fieldwork, on the one hand from content analysis and on the other, from the triangulation of data. All this using the Grounded Theory Approach (Glaser and Strauss, 1967). The unit of analysis is the educational community made up of a Secondary School classroom, comprising students from year 10, teachers from the centre and the student's mothers/fathers. The results confirm the efficacy of the training session carried out with the students. The activities performed favoured the broadening of knowledge, encouraged thoughts, sensations and feelings as well as developing more appropriate behaviour. It confirmed that teenagers' perceptions of old age do not match that of adults (parents and teachers). It also confirmed that formal education is a powerful tool to help positively change teenagers' attitudes towards the elderly and old-age.