Mentor in the Third Age: A Learning Perspective

Abstract

Abstract: Older adults can bring decades of knowledge and expertise to the mentoring table. We explore where older adults serve as mentors and the educational benefits they derive from mentoring, in light of prejudices ascribed through ageism. As mentors, older adults can remain engaged and continue to find meaning beyond retirement. Prejudice based on age, or ageism, is a socially-condoned and institutionalized form of bias in the United States (Nelson, 2005). This “dislike of aging and older people [is] based on the belief that aging makes people unattractive, unintelligent, asexual, unemployable, and senile” (Atchley, 1991, p. 291). Stereotypes stemming from ageism can be detrimental to the psychological, social and physiological well-being of older adults. We tend to marginalize, institutionalize, and strip older adults of responsibility, power, and ultimately dignity (Nelson, 2002). Appearance and clothing, television commercials, and individual behaviors perpetuate ageism, societal attitudes and negative stereotypes towards older adults (Skinner & Chowdhary, 1998). Despite negative stereotypes, adults in the third age are now taking advantage of

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