The success of science among the elderly through inclusion and participation

Abstract

This project take into account 30 institutionalised elderly people. Its principle aims are the inclusion of the elderly in different social and community contexts in which they live and promote their active participation and permanent education. More concretely, these essays sought the following aims in regard to the elderly: to enable their full development, namely, through cognitive and motor stimulation; to promote an active and emancipating aging; to enable a critical participation and reflexion about social reality; to stimulate curiosity for science and their daily lives; to encourage sustaining use of resources stimulating interest, preoccupation and responsibility for nature and the environment, as well as history. It is also important to mention that these projects are being developed in partnership with STOL - Science Through Our Lives -, which is a transdisciplinary group from the University of the Minho, dedicated to the publicizing of science to the general public. This association allows for making the contemporary developments in science and technology understandable in such a way to meet the daily needs of the elderly in the areas of health, environment, and nutrition. In relation to the paradigm that governs the research and on which these essays are based, it is qualitative in kind. In it, the individuals that are targeted in the study, “are not seen as objects with certain properties [...] that can be adequately measured, but rather as actors whose respective points of reference need to be researched in detail before their actions can be duly interpreted and explained” (Moreira, 1994, p. 1). The research is developed through an 1 investigative activity that permits, “simultaneously, a producing of knowledge about reality, the innovative aspect in regard to the singularity of each case, the producing of social changes and, in addition, the formation of participants’ competencies (Guerra, 2000, p. 2). We live in a society that is increasingly aging. It becomes crucial to develop, through education, social and personal responsibility towards the elderly. In view of life-long education and the 4th Objective of Sustainable Development, we aim to “assure an inclusive, equitable, and quality education, and promote opportunities of life-long learning for all” (ONU, 2015, p. 2).