Educational Courses for Older Adults as a Resource for Active Ageing

Lifelong learning in the third and fourth ages has been a global phenomenon for over a decade, particularly significant in so-called “ageing” societies. In Russia, educational programs for older adults represent a relatively new and promising direction in social policy development. Such programs are increasingly integrated into the broader system of lifelong learning for the general population and serve as a foundation for social engagement and individual well-being for many older citizens.

Strategies for ageing individuals can be broadly categorized into two main approaches: employment (continuing work and professional development) and social integration (participation in community life and interpersonal communication). Accordingly, the concept of active ageing was “originally conceived as a new policy construct aimed at redefining ageing and moving away from viewing later life solely as a period of illness and diminished resources.”

The project team has set the following objectives:

1. Conduct a survey among participants of educational courses for older adults in at least three regions of the Russian Federation (Krasnodar, Samara, Saratov);
2. Identify motivations and needs driving older adults to enroll in such courses;
3. Identify barriers preventing participation in regional active ageing programs;
4. Perform a qualitative content analysis of Russian federal strategic and regulatory documents to compare national policy goals with the objectives and resources of regional active ageing programs and assess their alignment with national strategic targets;
5. Examine gender aspects and identify gender gaps in education for older adults;
6. Evaluate the content and convergent validity of international active ageing indices;
7. Explore the potential of gamification in educational programs for older learners;
8. Investigate the characteristics of altruistic ageing strategies among “silver” volunteers in the context of temporality.

The project “Educational Courses for Older Adults as a Resource for Active Ageing” has been supported under the 2024 Faculty Competition for the Formation of Project Teams at the National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE University).

The project team includes five research interns from the Moscow Laboratory for Interdisciplinary Studies of Inequalities (MLISI): Vlada Mikhailova, Natalia Bulchenko, Arseny Buchatsky, Egor Novgorodov, and Elena Petrova, as well as Alexander Novikov, an undergraduate student in the HSE Bachelor’s Programme “Sociology.”