Transnational Project Meeting in Athens
On 4 and 5 November 2021, our second transnational project meeting was held in Athens, Greece. Almost one year beyond the official start of the collaboration, the member organizations finally met for the first time in person after the restrictions imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Hosted by the University of the Aegean, the meeting aimed at taking stock of the work done so far and to be done within the next months. The first point of the agenda was the forthcoming publication of the volume that will contain project partners’ analyses on ageism in their national contexts. The researchers from the Izmir University of Economics, responsible for this intellectual output and leader of the consortium, outlined an interesting overview of the results coming out from the data collected through the questionnaires circulated between April and June in Turkey, Poland, Hungary, and Italy. The questionnaires, based respectively on the Fraboni Scale of Ageism and the Facts on Ageing Quiz, were in fact intended as the core element of the studies in order to describe the current diffusion, peculiarities, and experience of age discrimination among different age groups. Despite some basic similarities, in each country the phenomenon clearly takes on different characteristics. Also, specific demographic variables seem to affect the under 60 dispositions towards ageism. In Poland, for example, it is older women who are more exposed to discrimination and prejudice, especially in the field of health. In Turkey, those on lower incomes showed to be more prone to ageism than those on higher monthly salaries, regardless of their level of education. In Italy, on the other hand, it is precisely a higher level of schooling that determines a lower propensity to stereotypes, prejudices, and negative tendencies towards over 60 citizens.
Partners then received precise technical indications on the production of the videos that will compose the final documentary. This project output is intended to give evidence of the pathway made in the different pilot sites and as a consortium to raise awareness on the issue of ageism and to create useful tools to contrast it. The documentary will be edited by Bilge Egemen, a well-known and talented Turkish journalist and documentarist.
Finally, the topics and the structure of the training cycle planned for May 2022 were also in-depth discussed. This training is one of the tools that will compose the future toolkit for older people education, another project output that will take shape over the next year and that will be made available for free to universities, training centers, and organizations active in the field of adult education.
The next transnational meeting, scheduled for April 2022, will be held in Poland at the University of Lodz.