Spain 36.1 Introduction

Abstract

Thinking about, presenting, and explaining, the situation of older adult education in Spain is no easy task. This is an education that is based on and sustained by the production of a social construct – older adults – which that very education helps to maintain. In Spain, the expression 'older persons' (personas mayores) is a relatively recent creation, the result, as in other countries, of efforts to problematize and dif-ferentiate ageing in human beings. In Western countries, such efforts have been expanding a great deal since the second half of the twentieth century. Currently, the everyday language used in Spanish homes, streets and institutions is plagued with countless objects related 'to older adults' or 'for older adults' – for example, asso-ciations of older adults, residences for older adults, activity centres for older adults, universities for older adults, vacations for older adults, discounts for older adults, exercise classes for older adults, etc. It therefore appears that the processes related to the social production of older adults have been successful. Spain is now a country of older adults, with large numbers of older adults: On January 1, 2013, 23 % of the Spanish population was aged 60 and above. In this cohort 56 % were women. Furthermore, 5.5 % of the population had reached on the same date 80 years or more. In this second cohort of oldest old, the percentage of women mounted to 63.8 %. Consequently to these fi gures (Instituto Nacional de Estadística [INE] [National Institute of Statistics] n.d.), Spain has set up a variety of resources for people 60+. Older adult education is just one item in that range of resources. It would be impossible to determine precisely when older adult education emerged in Spain. Long-standing education traditions in this country, such as adult education centres and popular universities, now co-exist with other more recent ones, such as mature learning centres and university programmes for older adults, all part of a network of institutions in which the type of education being addressed here – both formal and informal – have slowly gained ground until fully emerging and becoming consolidated in the Spanish educational scene. In contemporary Spain, nobody doubts that the education of older adults is a relatively common phe-nomenon. However, in contrast to what people often think, the appearance of older adults -and subsequently, of educational opportunities specifi cally targeting persons in the later stages of the life course – is not solely or even primarily a demographic phenomenon. In Spain older adults have been constructed as a social category. Which pro-cesses have contributed to this construction? We may refer to the invention and expansion of retirement systems – and the non-productive activity associated with retired people; the growing creation, diversifi cation and imposition of positive age-ing models (that is, that the ageing process should be satisfactory, successful, active, productive, competent, optimal, etc.), and the assumption of reproductive roles by many older adults (Pérez 2011). Moreover, the creation of public policies have led to the differentiation between active and dependent elders, which has resulted in differential distribution of power and privileges between diverse generations of older adults (Lenoir 1993). As a consequence, our position is clear: the existence of a specifi c 'older adult education' based exclusively on age is not justifi able, because age cannot be the criterion that legitimises this type of education (Sáez 2005a). Age (that is, chrono-logical age) is just another form of social discourse and rather than as a pure inde-pendent variable it should be viewed as the opposite: the resultant of interests and strengths, of social actions and orders. If age is not adequately problematized, offer-ing education specifi cally for older adults – understood as those who have lived a certain number of years – is like trying to build a house from the roof down. Unfortunately, this type of problematization has been conspicuously absent from Spanish discourse in this fi eld. 36.2 The Older Adult Education We Have Now