Intergenerational Contact Zones: Place-based Strategies for Promoting Social Inclusion and Belonging

In Intergenerational Contact Zones, Kaplan, Thang, Sánchez, and Hoffman introduce novel ways of thinking, planning, and designing intergenerationally enriched environments. Filled with vivid examples of how ICZs breathe new life into communities and social practices, this important volume focuses on practical descriptions of ways in which practitioners and researchers could translate and infuse the notion of ICZ into their work.

The ICZ concept embraces generation and regeneration of community life, parks and recreational locations, educational environments, residential settings and family life, and national and international contexts for social development. With its focus on creating effective and meaningful intergenerational settings, it offers a rich how-to toolkit to help professionals and user groups as they begin to consider ways to develop, activate, and nurture intergenerational spaces.

Intergenerational Contact Zones will be essential reading for academics and researchers interested in human development, aging, and society, as well as practitioners, educators, and policy makers interested in intergenerational gathering places from an international perspective.

Dr. Matthew Kaplan is Professor of Intergenerational Programs and Aging in the Department of Agricultural Economics, Sociology, and Education at Pennsylvania State University. He is an affiliate member of the Penn State Center for Healthy Aging and core faculty member of the Comparative and International Education (CIED) Dual-Title Graduate Degree Program.

Dr. Leng Leng Thang is Associate Professor and Head of Department of Japanese Studies, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, National University of Singapore. She is also is co-director of the Next Age Institute.

Dr. Mariano Sánchez is Associate Professor of Sociology and inaugural head of the Macrosad Chair in Intergenerational Studies at the University of Granada in Spain. Professor Sánchez is as well International Affiliate at the Center for Healthy Aging (Pennsylvania State University), and director of the Intergenerational Spaces Lab.

Dr. Jaco Hoffman, DPhil (Oxon), is socio-gerontologist and leader of the Optentia Research Focus programme: Ageing and Generational Dynamics in Africa (AGenDA) at North-West University, South Africa as well as James Martin Senior Research Fellow in the Oxford Institute of Population Ageing at the University of Oxford, UK.