Depolarising and restating the principles of educational gerontology: a late modern rationale

Today, it is no longer sensible to envisage older learners as complacent, naïve, oppressed and oblivious of their oppression, that their motivation to learn is precisely either a natural desire or the fruit of their non-conscious involvement in class struggles, or their emancipation requires a teacher-liberator. It is even less so to exonerate older adult education from its empowering and emancipating mission. These contentions and others polarise what came to be known as a humanist-critical philosophical debate embedded in three notorious statements of educational gerontology principles, offering one-sided explanations of educational and social realities from the sole vantage point of agency or structure. Partaking in this unfinished debate, this paper aims to depolarise it and devise a fourth statement of educational gerontology principles based on Anthony Giddens’s critical social theory, thus serving educational gerontology with an alternative, dualistic take on agency and structure. Giddens’swork inspires a timely late modern rationale for answering central questions in the teaching and learning of older people, including older learners’ profiles, motivation to learn, the educational goal and outcomes of their learning, and the role of their teachers.