Session Information
01 SES 12 A, Intergenerational Learning in the Workplace
Symposium
Contribution
The purpose of this study is to examine the extent to which teachers’ work related social networks are affected by age related characteristics. Due to demographic changes, such as the high retirement rate of older employees and the growing trend of age diversity, intergenerational learning gains more attention. Intergenerational learning is mainly conceptualized as an interactive process between groups of people from different generations through which one or both parties learn. Intergenerational relationships and interactions therefore support intergenerational learning. Furthermore, intergenerational learning is a valuable process for competence building and knowledge retention between different generations of teachers. While teachers are often unaware of the expertise and experience of their colleagues, also schools face difficulties in taking advantage of the expertise of all teachers within the school team. Social ties among actors in schools are essential since they provide access to social resources such as knowledge, information and expertise (Choo, 1998; Moolenaar, 2010). Based on the concept of network homophily, we assume that teachers are more likely to interact with colleagues of the same generational cohort (McPherson, Smith-Lovin, & Cook, 2001). Previous research suggested not to use a too narrow approach on age, therefore we also take into account the years of experience within the school. Survey data were collected among 352 teachers from 18 elementary schools in the Netherlands. Regarding the generational cohorts, 106 teachers were younger than 35 years old, 108 were between 35 and 50 years old and 138 teachers were older than 50. The survey contained social network questions on work related discussions, asking advice, providing advice, and collaboration. Using social network analysis, we first investigated if there are differences in normalized degree centrality between teachers of different generational cohorts (Borgatti, Everett, & Johnson, 2013). A one-way ANOVA was conducted on each network question. In addition, we analyzed the effect of teacher and school demographics on individual teachers’ probability of having relationships in the networks, by using p2 modeling (Zijlstra & van Duijn, 2003). Preliminary analysis of the data indicates that significant generational cohort differences regarding in-degree centrality were found for the network of giving advice and collaboration. Regarding out-degree centrality measures, significant differences between generational cohorts were found in the discussing work networks. Additionally, p2 modeling will provide more insight in how age related characteristics on the individual, dyadic and school level affect teachers’ patterns of relationships within the different networks.
References
Borgatti, S. P., Everett, M. G., & Johnson, J. C. (2013). Analyzing social networks. London: SAGE Publications Ltd. Choo, C. W. (1998). The knowing organization: How organizations use information to construct the meaning, create knowledge, and make decisions. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. McPherson, J. M., Smith-Lovin, L., & Cook, J. M. (2001). Birds of a feather: Homophily in social networks. Annual review of sociology, 27, 415-444. Moolenaar, N. M. (2010). Ties with potential: Nature, antecedents, and consequences of social networks in school teams. (Doctoral thesis), University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Zijlstra, B. J. H., & van Duijn, M. A. J. (2003). Manual p2. Version 2.0.0.7. Groningen: iec ProGAMMA/University of Groningen.
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