The increase in life expectancy, the very strong technological development in the last three decades, and the structural and subjective changes underlying the transformations of modern societies have increased the distance between generations and qualitatively reconfigured it. A reality with a great impact on the forms of communication and cultural reproduction and production. This situation is felt in different contexts of life, education, and professional work. In all cases, it is the conditions of socialization and its main actors that are strongly questioned, appealing to creative intentionality in promoting intergenerational dialogue.

According to Barros and Monteiro (2019) intergenerational dialogue favours the construction of bonds, breaks down barriers of social and cultural stereotypes and prejudices. Therefore, it is necessary to recognize age and cultural differences using them as an educational tool for the construction of intergenerational relationships. Intergenerational relationships are understood as links established between people or groups of people with different ages and in different development cycles, enabling the exchange of experiences and contributing to the production of knowledge in a given community (Ferreira, Massi, Correio & Mendes, 2015). Interaction between generations improves the transmission of cultural values and promotes a sense of worth for people of all ages: young people who learn from older people tend to develop more positive and realistic attitudes about the older generation; the latter group, in turn, feels valued and able to continue contributing to the community in which they live (Massi, Lourenço, Lima, Xavier, 2012).

As do so, intergenerational relationships enable the establishment of an exchange of information between subjects and starting with these exchanges, each develops and reworks their experiences. This will allow people of different ages to learn and teach each other, according to their own views of the different generations. From the perspective of Newman and Halton (2008), this intergenerational learning may be defined as a social vehicle that “purposeful and ongoing exchange of resources and learning between older and younger generations” (p. 32), regarded as a platform that brings positive impact to the learning environment (Netshandama, Nevhudoli, 2021). Intergenerational learning is therefore a generational phenomenon in the workplace that is of particular interest to human resource development; it concerns individuals’ joint construction of knowledge through an exchange of information with one or more individuals from different generations (Ropes, 2013).

For these reasons, projects related to intergenerational dialogues have seen their importance grow. A study conducted by Pstross et al. (2017), for example, attests to the positive impact of intergenerational programmes in higher education settings. They found that through these programmes, students acquired an understanding of ageing and of services provided to older adults and learned to interact better with them. Also, Santoro, Pietsch and Borg (2012) investigated what pre-service teachers learned from a former generation of teachers about the context and nature of teaching and teacher education during the 1950s and 1960, founding that pre-service teachers drew inspiration from the older teachers’ emotional connection to the profession, and their own passion for teaching developed or intensified as they came to understand teaching as a rewarding lifelong career.

Building on this framework this pilot study was focused in creating intergenerational learning spaces based on a collaboration between university students and relevant people from an older generation. This enabled the dialogue between generations and the acquisition of knowledge about historical facts - and the way they were experienced by society from 1950' - 1970', values and lifestyles from these years based on the narrated experiences of older generations.

This pilot study was developed under the scope of the project “Fifty years of teaching: factors of change and intergenerational dialogues”. The participants were 16 students enrolled in the optional curricular unit "Intergenerational Dialogues, Education and Challenges of Contemporary Societies", in an Education Sciences Master’s degree of a Portuguese University during the first semester of the 2022/2023 The main objectives of this study were: (1) to bring students to reflect on the conditions of intergenerational dialogue from the projects and initiatives developed in different contexts, and (2) to explore the possibilities for the creation and development of promoting intergenerational dialogue developing an intergenerational dialogue project and evaluate its effects. During the first lessons students were invited to explore the concepts of "generation"; "intergenerational dialogues" and the use of biographical narratives in qualitative research. After that, they identified the person with whom they want to establish their intergeneration dialog through a biographical interview, providing them with the opportunity to develop their understanding of historical facts from 1950' - 1970' society and the way interviewees experienced it, the values and lifestyles from these years based on the lived life experiences of their interlocutors. 3 smaller groups were formed and mentored by one of the 3 teachers of the curricular unit. After all students define their main objective and prior to conducting the interviews the students were given instruction by each teacher-mentor on the fundamentals of biographical interviewing. They then constructed the interview guide with questions related to their individual main objective. Students audio-recorded the biographical interviews, transcribed them verbatim and then analysed them, looking for data to use to construct their narrative of the interlocutors lives. The narratives were presented by a multimodal form and presented in an open class. Finally, students were invited to participate in a focus group in order to elicit information from the students about their perceptions of these intergenerational dialogues and the biographical narrative as a research method; what they had learned from their interlocutors about the social and political context of the 1950s - 1970s, and what connections they had made between their own lives and generation and their own experiences. The student’s reflections, the products of the projects, the teachers' field notes, and the focus group carried out will constitute research data that will be analysed by thematic content analysis in order to assess the effects and correlative production of recommendations.

The preliminary results show the benefits of engaging higher education students in intergenerational learning initiatives. Students state that they gained knowledge, competences and skills which contributed to both their personal and professional development. As student 6 refers, "I really learned a lot apart from the academic skills and knowledge, I learned about personal and relational development too". Some students report the possibility of intergenerational dialogues promoting intergenerational and intercultural solidarity. This is related to the fact that through intergenerational dialogues students experience a transformation in their attitudes and are able to understand more deeply the backgrounds of their interlocutors. Knowledge about the past through the lives of the interviewees was another point referred. War and hunger; dictatorship and lack of freedom; and the birth of the consumer society are some of the topics most mentioned. Another interesting result seems to be the students’ awareness of the possibility of a different pedagogical climate at the university created through the way this curricular unit was methodologically thought and implemented: working in small groups mentored by a specific teacher and the uncompetitive and collaborative atmosphere created between all the class. As student 11 pointed out, "I want to emphasize the importance of the way the classes were held as the biggest incentive for a good “performance” on the part of all students (...) the small working groups, with the mentorship of the teachers, allowed not only a closer and guided monitoring of what was the work we were developing, but also the sharing of different opinions and feedbacks by all the members of the group, and allowing closer relationships." In this sense, the preliminary results suggest that intergenerational dialogue is an excellent methodology for enabling transformative education. The development of intergenerational dialogues programmes seems to create significant learning opportunities and a transformation in attitudes between generations.

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