Overview
- Provides a rigorous comparative analysis informed by research, scholarship, and practice
- Draws upon a diversity of global U3A experiences and contexts
- Offers a unique and necessary update, overview, and analysis of the U3A movement
- Looks ahead to future challenges with policy recommendations
- Concludes with a passionate call to action for the U3A movement to renew itself in order to remain relevant for an incoming generation of older persons
Part of the book series: International Perspectives on Aging (Int. Perspect. Aging, volume 23)
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Table of contents (21 chapters)
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The Background Context
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European Perspectives
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Asian-Pacific Perspectives
Keywords
- University of the Third Age
- older adults learning
- learning in later life in Europe an Asia
- active aging and education
- history of U3A
- adult education in Great Britain
- adult education in Malta
- adult education in Germany
- adult education in Russia
- adult education in China
- adult education in Sweden
- adult education in Spain
- adult education in Poland
- adult education in Taiwan
- adult education in South Korea
- adult education in Iran
- adult education in Thailand
- adult education in Malaysia
- adult education in Iceland
- U3A movemenet and policy
About this book
This comparative resource charts the interface between the University of the Third Age (U3A) movement and active ageing, and in doing so, offers a comprehensive and thorough understanding of what U3A means in different geographical and sociocultural contexts. After first providing introductory chapters to introduce the U3A movement and active ageing in global perspective and tracing the origins of U3As in France, the book sets off charting the international development of U3As in both European and Asian-Pacific contexts. Deliberately, the book moves away from the dominant Anglo-centric US- and UK-rooted analyses of U3As to account for contexts of different political ideology, sociocultural values, geography, and degrees of urbanisation and industrialisation. Lastly, it thematises foreseeable issues, concerns, and predicaments that the global U3A movement faces while meeting the challenges and seizing the opportunities presented by active ageing.
The chapters’ comparative perspectives encompass:
- Origins and development: The Francophone model of U3As
- The development and characteristics of U3As in European and Asian-Pacific geographies
- From social welfare to educational gerontology: U3As in China, Russia, Taiwan, Malaysia and South Korea
- U3As in Italy, Spain and Sweden: A dynamic, flexible, and accessible learning model
- Late-life learning for social inclusion: U3As in Poland, Iceland, United Kingdom, and Malta
- The U3A movement in Australia: From statewide networking to community engagement
- Cross-cultural perspectives on U3As: The case of Thailand
The University of the Third Age and Active Ageing boasts welcome contributions to the scholarship on the different histories, structures, and challenges posed by national U3As. Readers from a variety of backgrounds and research interests including gerontology, geriatrics, active ageing, older adult learning, comparative education and educational technology will find this a necessary and valuable resource in better understanding a globalised U3A world.
"The University of the Third Age and Active Ageing: European and Asian-Pacific Perspectives contributes to the deep well of histories, experiences, structures, accomplishments and problems of national U3As. It emerges as a tapestry of extraordinary research that offers to guide the U3A movement as it soon enters its fiftieth year of existence."
- Prof. Stephen Katz. Trent University
Editors and Affiliations
About the editor
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: The University of the Third Age and Active Ageing
Book Subtitle: European and Asian-Pacific Perspectives
Editors: Marvin Formosa
Series Title: International Perspectives on Aging
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-21515-6
Publisher: Springer Cham
eBook Packages: Education, Education (R0)
Copyright Information: Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-21514-9Published: 11 July 2019
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-21517-0Published: 14 August 2020
eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-21515-6Published: 01 July 2019
Series ISSN: 2197-5841
Series E-ISSN: 2197-585X
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XXI, 274
Number of Illustrations: 3 b/w illustrations, 3 illustrations in colour
Topics: Lifelong Learning/Adult Education, Aging, Positive Psychology, Social Work and Community Development