, University of Social Welfare and Rehabilitation Sciences
Abstract: (307 Views)
Introduction: Ageism develops from childhood, and examining children’s attitudes towards old age can help in understanding the situation and planning for successful aging. Therefore, the aim of this study was to analyze the content of primary school students' paintings in Izeh city to determine their attitudes towards older adults.
Method: The method of this study was quantitative content analysis. First, 145 students were selected by simple random sampling method in the ages of 6–12-year-old in Izeh city in 2019. Then, 284 elderly male and female characters drawn by these students were included in the study as the analysis unit. The Danowski checklist, the Tree diagram and descriptive statistics such as frequency and percentage, as well as inferential statistics such as Chi-square and multivariable logistic regression were used to analyze the data.
Results: The mean age of students was 9.28 (±1.85). Analysis of students' drawings showed that although more than half of the drawings (69.4%) portrayed positive stereotypes the grandparents, 88.8% of students did not like getting old and only 23.4% of students had a positive view toward old age. Logistic regression findings showed that being a boy increased the probability of portraying elderly with negative stereotypes by 5 times (OR=5.620; CI=1.34-23.63) and with increasing age more negative stereotypes were observed in students' drawings (OR=1.50; CI=1.03-2.20).
Conclusion: Considering the increase of negative stereotypes among students with increasing age and also more negative stereotypes among boys, it is necessary to pay more attention to this issue in educational programming and intergenerational interventions at schools. Early intervention in childhood, can help prevent ageism in the future aging society of Iran.
Aalipour R, Momtaz Y A, Pakdaman S, Faday Vatan R, Asgari H, Zanjari N. Content analysis of primary students’ drawing of older Adults. joge 2024; 9 (3) :42-52 URL: http://joge.ir/article-1-714-en.html