The generational meetings laboratory and researches/experimentations of inter-generational tourism in alternating school-work

In a time when relationships between groups of young people and the elderly are mostly superficial or non-existent, the Generational Meetings Laboratory is proposing researches faced on fight against the increasing distance among the generations. Computer languages, one of the main obstacles to communication between generations, have been adopted as tools of the relationship between elderly and young people. The results of further studies encouraged the researchers of the Lab to enrich the experimentations in a tourist context. Intergenerational tourism has been defined as: "one of the new tourisms, an opportunity for knowledge, through a tourist-cultural experience, between participants of different generations - unrelated to family ties - and defined Grandparents and Grandchildren for the group climate, similar to the family one"(Albanese e Bocci, 2014a: 56). The intergenerational tourism starts in 2000 at the University of Milan. The re search/experimentations use multi-theoretical and multi-methodological approaches in the area of social psychology and are based on the studies of the psychology of aging, cultivated by Prof. Marcello Cesa-Bianchi. The experimentations are monitored by the University network A.R.I.P.T.Fo.R.P (Association for Interdisciplinary Research in Psychology of Tourism- Training, Research and Planning). From the a.y. 2015-2016, A.R.I.P.T.Fo.R.P. has set up Alternating School Work contracts with secondary schools, planning intergenerational holidays in North and Central Italy. Within the framework of studies conducted at national level, here we focus on some salient aspects of the researches/experimentations started in 2002 and recently conducted in the Viterbo area, where Alternating School Work is configured as a cycle of preparatory and motivational meetings to intergenerational tourism. The results confirm the phases of communication development introduced by A. Albanese (2001). The computer’s lab tasks and digital photography activities, historic trails and nature trails during the holyday help the knowledge and the relationship between people of different generation, in overcoming stereotypes and prejudices. As during computer lessons, during leisure as well, the research highlights the intergroup relations evolution that, from an approach phase it evolves towards the acquaintance among the attendants, up to generate moments of real empathy. The group, consolidated through the three phases, generates a new phase of creativity, the latter is expressed in Viterbo in the pact between generations in favour of local communities and the environment. The results obtained so far in intergenerational studies encourage the realization of further experiences of Alternating School Work (thanks also to the renewed interest of MIUR) and of new researches/experimentations of intergenerational tourism, for a continuous extension/evolution of the model at national level and international. In fact, the project showed the flexibility needed to be applied in different contexts and periods.

Keywords: Intergenerational tourism, alternating school work, environment, pact between the generations.

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  DOI: 10.3280/rip2022oa14721

Elena Bocci, Antonietta Albanese, Il laboratorio incontri generazionali e le ricerche/sperimentazioni di turismo intergenerazionale in alternanza scuola-lavoro in "RICERCHE DI PSICOLOGIA " 4/2019, pp 700-719, DOI: 10.3280/RIP2019-004008