Learning across generations
New research from Stockholm University highlights how intergenerational learning—a process where people from different age groups learn from and with each other—operates as a reciprocal, socially co-constructed process that shapes both identity and understanding. Rather than one-directional knowledge transfer, learning across generations creates connections characterised by mutual exchange, perspective-taking and collaborative knowledge creation.
Intergenerational learning enables lifelong learning and continuous improvement in organisations with workforces spanning generations.
The research identifies four recurring patterns that demonstrate how effective intergenerational learning occurs through relationships and shared action: bridging past and present through shared histories, educating through emotional connection, learning through perspective-taking across age groups, and collaborative efforts to shape future possibilities.
This research positions intergenerational learning as a dynamic process where all participants contribute to and benefit from collective understanding. The proposed Relational Intergenerational Learning framework situates learning as temporally situated and shaped by intergenerational relations, emphasising the social construction of knowledge over individual acquisition.
The findings are informative for workplace learning design, particularly in contexts where multiple generations collaborate and where organisational knowledge preservation depends on cross-generational dialogue.
Source: Nordin, L. 2025. "Toward a Relational Understanding of Intergenerational Learning." Doctoral thesis, Stockholm University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Education.
Update: This thesis can no longer be retrieved online. For alternate sources on how intergenerational learning happens through relationships and shared action, the following sources are recommended.
A 2023 systematic review by Trulillo-Torres et al (2023) reported consistent benefits where different age groups took part in purposeful, mutually beneficial activity together.
Trujillo-Torres, J. M., Aznar-Diaz, I., Caceres-Reche, M. P., Mentado-Labao, T.
and Barrera-Corominas, A. 2023. "Intergenerational Learning and Its Impact on
the Improvement of Educational Processes." Education Sciences 13(10):1019.
The pattern holds at work, and it unfolds over time. Another study followed a full-time intergenerational learning programme at an automobile company for three years, interviewing participants aged 16 to 19, colleagues aged 41 to 47 and their instructors. Each generation held its own expert, practical, social and metacognitive knowledge, and what they exchanged shifted in phases across the life of the programme.