Ieva Stončikaitė

The beginning of 2024 was marked by a wave of intense and polarised social media commentary and public debate concerning the posthumous publication of the novella1 Until August (in the original Spa...

This study examines cyberbullying through a collaborative virtual activity involving 33 students enrolled in the Master’s Degree in Secondary Education at the University of X (Spain). It presents a case of a 4th-year student from Compulsory Secondary Education, who experienced a non-consensual distribution of an intimate image, resulting in widespread harassment on social media. The participants engaged in a seven-phase virtual network with an aim to analyse the characteristics of cyberbullying, and propose potential intervention strategies. The platform facilitated the development of ideas through original contributions and adaptations based on critical feedback. The study highlights the need for multidimensional interventions that integrate emotional support, values-based education, and digital literacy. The results demonstrate the potential of collaborative environments to provide practical solutions to complex educational issues, enabling educators to better respond to cyberbullying and similar scenarios. They also underscore the importance of communication between educators, families, and legal authorities.

In Michel Houellebecq’s écriture grise, the decline of Western civilization is intertwined with contemporary maladies and the fear of aging. A bleak depiction of aging bodies functions as an extended metaphor for broader social pathologies, including the decline of spirituality, community well-being, and traditional values. Recurring themes such as the obsession with sex and anti-aging bodywork, the cult of youth, compulsive consumerism, and erotic hedonism reflect Houellebecq’s critique of the transformations of the second half of the 20th century. Many of his protagonists, trapped in an existential midlife crisis and driven by anxieties related to intimate relationships and societal pressures to remain functional, youthful, and engaged, frequently resort to suicide. Using the framework of interdisciplinary age studies and the critical theory of social pathologies, this article discusses how Houellebecq’s characters struggle to navigate the challenges within competitive neoliberal imperatives, libidinal economies, and the discourse of successful aging. It also underscores how his oeuvre, often characterized as apocalyptic, dystopian, or neo-decadent, advocates for authentic connection, care, faith, and unconditional love as essential components of human existence and survival.

Background and Objectives: Although the model of successful aging is already well discussed and has received considerable critical responses, its intersection with the growing enthusiasm for creative engagement among older adults needs further exploration. This article contributes to the growing literature on later-life creativity by examining its relationship with the discourse of successful aging. Research Design and Methods: The study employs critical humanities-based perspectives and the literature on later life to address creativity in older age within contemporary neoliberal imperatives. Results: Although successful aging is an antithesis to the narrative of decline, it often fails to capture alternative meanings of aging and the creative engagement in later life. The commercialization and commodification of creativity often function to discipline individuals toward a culture of productivity, optimization, and innovation. However, many older individuals challenge these notions as they create their own models of aging well and authentically that do not align with the ideals of successful aging. Discussion and Implications: Reductionist, individualistic, and capital-driven understandings of later-life creativity can be broadened by employing critical interdisciplinary approaches, which also help rethink the current meanings of old age and aging. The article will be of interest to scholars, policymakers, artists, and practitioners in gerontological scholarship and the humanities.

The complexities surrounding aging, dementia, and care are timely and urgent issues that transcend beyond institutional boundaries, evincing a critical debate on later life across disciplines. In recent decades, there has been a significant rise in literary and cultural representations of dementia and care narratives, which offer valuable insights into the intricate paradigms of living and growing older with this condition. In her memoir I Remain in Darkness (1999), the Nobel Prize winning author Annie Ernaux provides a candid account of her mother’s journey through dementia, from its onset to the gradual decline. Ernaux sincerely explores the nuances of dementia and caregiving within both the familial and institutional context, and sheds light on the complex and uneasy relationship between a mother and a daughter. Through the act of witnessing, she embarks on a path of healing, which allows her to confront her past wounds and better navigate the challenges that lie ahead. Ernaux’s harrowing account of her mother’s dementia and aging is both a confessional piece of writing and a narrative therapy, which reveals the challenges of aging, illness, and unresolved family tensions. Her work illuminates the interconnectedness between the past, present, and future, and shows that illness narratives can act as a catalyst for transformative change, identity formation, and self-reflection. However, Ernaux’s confessional memoir also troubles the ethics of life writing and identity issues, and seems to perpetuate the pathologizing medical gaze through the exposure of her mother’s vulnerability and intimacy in the face of dementia and care.

This article underlines the potential of autoethnography as interdisciplinary qualitative methodology to improve research and pedagogy in critical geragogy. It argues that autoethnography, broadly expanding and yet still only fairly legitimized approach, can serve as an ageism intervention, an act of activism, and sociocultural critique to raise awareness about gender- and age-based discrimination in an adult educational context. First-person representations framed within autoethnography allow for expression of the ways in which ageism can be experienced in academic and educational environments as well as in more mundane and private settings. Autoethnographical writing also has the power to question prevailing frames of thinking, subverts dominant discourses and ‘subjugated knowledges,’ and allows for plausible solutions to current and future challenges in adult education and later life. Exposing and defying stereotypical notions of aging can positively alter the social milieu, community well-being, and quality of life of older individuals. Autoethnography also helps reveal many unvoiced aspects about lifelong learning, gender dynamics, and the intricacies of aging, and move beyond traditional empirical and disciplinary boundaries. Critical insider views of scholars, students, and professionals involved in adult education, social work, and gerontology programmes can help foster new interdisciplinary knowledge and ameliorate their research, learning processes, and teaching practices.

This case study reveals that age-related areas are the least desirable professional future options for many university students in social work degree programmes. One of the possible causes is the negative social labelling of older age, especially pronounced in respect of older women. Additionally, there is a poor and limited educational approach towards later life and growing older inside and outside the educational settings. This article focuses on the social construction of older age from gender and double theoretical perspectives. In particular, it centers on the pillars of education and profiguration. For educational and analytical purposes, these aspects are approached in the classroom setting from a critical perspective by using the in-depth reading of a book that is set in the local context, in particular, the city of Lleida (Spain). It presents the results of the content analysis and reflections written by 170 first-year university students taking a degree course in social work, and the outcomes of the subsequent classroom discussions with the author of the book. The study results show that better knowledge about the complexities of ageing and later life can lead to the reconstruction of the students’ viewpoints about older age, help foster critical thinking, and defy age-related stereotypes, beliefs, and prejudices.

This article is based on qualitative analysis of interviews and focus groups conducted with participants enrolled in the Senior Programme of the University of Lleida, the City Council of Lleida, and care homes, as well as professional workers in the field of gerontology and related areas. It presents the analysis of interviews focused on the participants’ life trajectories, ageing, creativity, self-perception, and quality of life. The study aimed to examine how creativity influences the maintenance and improvement of a sense of wellbeing in older adults, and to reflect on how the perception of old age and of oneself changes through creative activity and active engagement across the life span. The article is framed within a new concept in sociology and the social sciences—‘profiguration’, which is the key element in the promotion and strengthening of intergenerational interdependence, education, wellbeing, social participation, and active ageing.