ABSTRACT
The service-learning approach in education, which integrates community service with academic classroom learning, is gaining national prominence. The goals of this project were to incorporate intergenerational service-learning into an undergraduate introductory gerontology course and to involve students and elders in meaningful in220teractions in a rural community setting. Thirteen of the 50 students in the class could be accommodated at nursing home and semi-independent living sites and were paired with elders for friendly visiting and oral history. Attitude scales (Pillemer & Albright, 1996) indicated that service-learning students showed more positive change at post-test in overall attitudes toward the elderly than did non service-learning students. Open-ended questions indicated that students valued the experience, felt it enhanced classroom learning, and gained knowledge about rural elders and communities. Follow-up interviews with elders were uniformly positive. [Article copies available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service: 1-800-HAWORTH. E-mail address: <docdelivery@haworthpressinc.com> Website: < https://www.HaworthPress.com" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">https://www.HaworthPress.com > © 2002 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.]
