Life Transitions and Making: An Exploratory Study of Older Adults from a Library Program on the Maker Movement

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Thursday 9:45 am - Gold 4
  In Roundtable Session: Roundtable: Informal Learning Practices in the Learning Sciences

Abstract

Older adults, who are people around their 60s or older, usually have experienced a kind of transition in their lives, such as retirement. Previous studies have explored the application of making—including makerspaces, toolkits, and workshops—to support older adults’ learning. However, considering the importance of older adults as lifelong learners, our study shifts the focus to how older adults perceive making, learn to make, and embracing their own life transition experiences into making. Thus, we designed and implemented a library program centered on the maker movement for older adults and conducted an ethnographic investigation of their experiences. We examined how participants’ identities as makers were reinforced and how their own community of older adult makers was empowered.

Authors

• Hyewon Park, University of California - Davis

• Yong Ju Jung, University of Oklahoma

• Ellen Rubenstein, University of Oklahoma