New guide launched to change the way we talk about generations
To mark National Intergenerational Week (8-14 March) a guide to Talking about Generations has been produced with suggestions for avoiding the pitfalls of ‘generation talk’.
3yr ago
A new book co-authored by Dr Jennie Bristow, Reader in Sociology, explores key questions on generational studies.
‘Generations’ has become something of a buzzword in policy circles, and a rapidly developing area of academic study.
Journalists write about generational conflicts over housing, pensions, values and voting. Policymakers attempt to tackle the tensions associated with aging societies, resulting from increased longevity and falling birth rates, with plans to improve ‘intergenerational equity’. New charities, think-tanks, and research projects focus on bringing about closer relations between old and young.
The book is co-edited with Helen Kingstone of Royal Holloway, University of London, and seeks to introduce the potential of multidisciplinary generational thinking.
Studying Generations: Multidisciplinary Perspectives, is published in Open Access and will be launched at an open workshop on 14 May. The book’s contributors, from sociology, literature, history of science, media and cultural studies, psychology, and intergenerational practice, alongside organisations working with generations, will reflect on the meaning of the concept in their own work, and how this collaboration has contributed to their future thinking about generations.
With all this generation talk, there is a need for clarity about what it means. Generation is a powerful concept, which can describe relations within families, across cohorts, and the embodiment of historical change. Academics from a range of disciplines, from the Humanities to the Social and Natural Sciences, employ this concept in different ways; and its use in media and policy debates can often be divisive and one-sided.
Dr Jennie Bristow, Reader in the School of Law, Policing and Social Sciences
Studying Generations is the outcome of a Wellcome-funded project that brought together academics and Third Sector organisations throughout the Covid-19 pandemic to discuss the potential of generations in helping us make sense of uncertain times. It is the first in the exciting new book series Generations, Transitions, and Social Change.