The graying of the college classroom.

This study is concerned with the effects of having people older than 60 years of age participate as peers in the college classroom with college-age students. We were particularly interested in changes in attitudes of the younger participants toward their own aging, older people, and intergenerational classes, and in changes in attitudes of the older students toward intergenerational classes, young people, and studying in a college class. Although little is known about the attitudes of older people toward youth (Powell & Arquitt, 1978), the attitudes of youth toward older people have been studied extensively. A number of the latter studies have focused on interventions meant to change attitudes. Rosencrantz and McNevin (1969) found that, the more frequent the contact with older people the more favorable the attitude of college students, but Drake (1957) and Thorson (1975), who defined contact as having a living grandparent, failed to find such an effect. Seefeldt et al. (1977) and Glass and associates (Class & Trent, 1978, 1980; Class et al., 1977; Trent et al., 1979) designed educational experiences that led to more positive attitudes toward older people on the part of children and adolescents. Trent and others, for example, found positive change after a seminar series on aging, interaction with older adults, and a combination of the two. Although studies of changes in attitude of people of college age have been mildly contradictory, the research suggests that courses in gerontology alone fail to cause positive changes in attitude (Fletcher et al., 1971; Troll & Schlossberg, 1970; Tuckman & Lorge, 1954) whereas contact with older people (Holzman et al., 1978; Porter & O'Connor, 1978) does cause positive changes in attitude. Gordon and Hallauer (1976) found that an adult development course alone led to positive changes in attitude to-