Transgenerational Culture Transfer as Social Constructions in Intergenerational Relationships

Abstract

Within the demographic change social work scientist see new interchangeabilities of generations which can be seen as a result of the relativization of age and secondly the end of the social and cultural restrictions regarding older persons which lead due to an increase in numbers to a new claim attitude of participation and activation. The relativization of ages leads to the relativization of intergenerational relations and flows into a society that renounces the idea of generation in its role as knowledge broker or value creators within an age-cohort. That leads to pedagogical and political consequences to define the functionality of the term generation for a society. This new way of looking at generation enables new possibilities between different generations in families and between generations outside relative relations. Every society has it ways to thematize, transfer, manage and preserve events, facts, knowledge, and experiences in an inter-subjective binding way with a broad range of criteria for sense. The central question hereby is the issue of an active and conscious transfer. Especially in the discussion, promotion and development of joint values intergenerational contexts beyond the family memory become of specific importance. Each time younger and older people within a family or in an unrelated relationship intergenerational and/or internationally come together and take part of a conversation more than one time they participate actively trans-generational and –national in the development of new constructions. Therefore they can be collectively responsible for the social and cultural relevant knowledge of the future.