Focus Group 2

Participants: members of GESEC and members of Dedal-Lit-CELCA, members of the PRO-SUEDAD project, and a BIR student (7 participants including specialists in literature and culture, sociology, education, and health; furthermore, the participants are of various ages).

The main objective of the second focus group is to address, in a smaller committee and considering the age or generational factor of the participants, concepts such as ‘profiguration,’ ‘ageism,’ ‘care,’ ‘active aging,’ and ‘unwanted solitude’ from the perspectives of sociology, education, health, and literature, with narrative as a common element across all areas.

Before the focus group, the moderator, Fidel Molina, asked the participants to review the following websites:

Profiguration: https://centracs.es/revista/article/view/88/85

Ageism (WHO/ OMS) https://www.who.int/es/publications/m/item/initiating-a-conversation-about-ageism

https://fundacionlacaixa.org/es/personas-mayores-recursos-digitales-glosario-edadismo

Ageing and Health (OMS / WHO) https://www.who.int/es/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/ageing-and-health

Care in an ageing society https://www.jubilaciondefuturo.es/es/blog/la-mirada-experta-de-gregorio-rodriguez-cabrero-los-cuidados-en-una-sociedad-envejecida.html

We are and will be an ageing society https://ethic.es/2021/11/somos-y-seremos-una-sociedad-envejecida-y-ahora-que-hacemos/

Subsequently, each of the aforementioned terms was debated from the perspective of various fields. Some interesting conclusions from the discussion included the need to change or modify the current ‘social contract’ to move towards a more interdependent society (where the word independent may not hold as much value). Another conclusion was the necessity of working through education and schools, across all ages, towards an increasingly ageing society that promotes and values intergenerational relationships.