Projekt

The focus of this project are the intergenerational care arrangements and the potential of young caregivers in education (YCE) in this context. Due to the demographic change, young caregivers between the ages of 18 and 30 years formally engaged in education (e.g., as university students or apprentices) are providing an increasing share of care for older adults. This bears both positive potential, such as building new competencies like compassion and resilience and the strengthening of intergenerational relations, and negative potential, such as physical and mental health issues, stress and time constraints, financial problems and decreased care quality, even elder abuse. This project explores these potentials in order to develop practical support measures that improve both the situation of the young people providing care and the older adults for whom they provide care. Based on a participatory mixed-methods design in which quantitative and qualitative methods are triangulated and contrasted across three countries (Germany, Poland, UK), the project aims to: (1) enhance the country-comparative knowledge about intergenerational care arrangements with a focus on YCE, (2) explore ways to harness the potential of intergenerational care arrangements by raising awareness and improving the situation of YCE and older care recipients across Europe in a participatory manner, (3) establish a European research network and equip early career researchers (ECR) with sound methodological knowledge and innovative participatory tools for researching intergenerational relations.

• Dr. Anna Wanka

  Universität Frankfurt am Main
  Fachbereich Erziehungswissenschaften
  Institut für Sozialpädagogik und Erwachsenbildung
  Frankfurt am Main
  

• Prof. Dr. Moritz Heß

  Hochschule Niederrhein
  Fachbereich Sozialwesen
  Professur für Gerontologie
  Krefeld
  

• Prof. Dr. Marie-Pierre Moreau

  Anglia Ruskin University
  School of Education and Social Care
  Cambridge
  Grossbritannien
  

• Prof. Dr. Jolanta Perek-Bialas

  Jagiellonian University in Krakow
  Centre for Evaluation and Analysis of
  Public Policies
  Kraków
  Polen