Intercultural gerontology curriculum: Principles and practice

Abstract

The internationalization of universities and the aging of the global population are two current issues that converge and challenge undergraduate gerontology curriculum development in Canada. One response to this challenge is to envision an intercultural gerontology curriculum. What might this curriculum encompass? How might it be taught? An exploratory study was undertaken to address these two questions. This paper presents findings from this study based primarily on interviews with university-based stakeholders from Canada, the United States, and Europe. Thematic analysis of the interviews resulted in five themes: multiple perspectives on cultural diversity; the dynamic nature of cultural diversity and aging; flow of an intercultural curriculum; institutional culture and intercultural curricula; and principles and practice for intercultural gerontology. Framed by principles of gerontology theory and educational approaches, this paper focuses on the principles and practice suggested by study participants. Scaffolding learning, active learning strategies, experiential learning opportunities, teacher modelling, and internet-based learning are discussed as key to intercultural learning. An appendix includes a list of resources that may be useful to developing an intercultural gerontology curriculum.

An Intercultural Curriculum in a Leadership in Community Engagement Program: Linking Theory and Practice

“…UNESCO provides a foundational definition for culture in an educational context: "In discussing culture, reference is made to all the factors that pattern an individual's ways of thinking, believing, feeling and acting as a member of society" (UNESCO, 2006). Importantly, it is not only ethnicity, race, gender, and age that form culture; class, nation of origin, religion, socioeconomic status, physical/mental disability, and sexual orientation and identity also play a role (Guo & Jamal, 2009;Gurung, 2009;Mercer, 2017). Integral to thinking about culture and learning are a number of concepts that emerged in the 1980s and 1990s and that have been embraced as well as modified since their early days; they include terms such as multicultural, cross-cultural, cultural awareness, cultural competence, and cultural safety (Gundara & Portera, 2008).…”