Reseach on grandparenthood over the last two decades shows that the relationship between grandparents and grandchildren (GP-GC) is seen as positive and important by both generations.
The latter model will be used as a basis for understanding the GP-GC relationship. This model identifies a number of stereotypes of older persons, some of them are negative (e.g., despondent, self-centred) while some are positive (e.g., small town neighbour, liberal matriarch/patriarch). Negative stereotypes led communication breakdown, as the younger generation tends to 'over accommodate' (e.g., overtly polite, ideologically simple) and the older generation 'unaccommodating' (e.g., talking in a patronizing way), producing dissatisfactory communication for both parties.
According to Ministry of Higher Education 2007, number of Malaysians choosing to study overseas will increase due to the MOHE new mission to ensure at least 75% of the lecturers in the public institutes of higher education possess the Doctor of Philosophy qualification and its equivalent, and 30% of the lecturers in the polytechnics and community colleges possess the Masters' Degree and PhD and their equivalent .
Age of the grandchildren is a significant negative correlation between the number of living grandparent. The findins from (Hopflinger 2006) estimated that 99% of Swiss grandchildren at the age of 40 do not have any living grandparents. So, based on this forecast we can assume that quite a number of Malaysians in UK still have their grandparents in Malaysia. As Creasey and Kalher 1994, mentioned that older grandchildren express less desire to contact with the grandparent. This is because as the children grow, their relationships with others change. When the children start entering primary school, they spend a great deal of time with other children. So, this could be worse if it is a long distance relationship.
Malaysian older people and internet... at present, majority of the Malaysian older adults have no use of the Internet. Majority of the Internet subcribers are students and working professionals. Even so though the older people do not subcribe to the Internet, majority of them live in a house with computer and Internet connection. In order to train Malaysian older people one needs to consider the cultural aspect too. Older adults learning in Malaysia are informal and experienced, and the learning is communal and currently much of the learning is religious or spiritual in orientation. Malaysia government has provided a training program called Program Latihan ICT Desa or Village ICT Training Program for bselected Internet centre in selected village (not necessarily for older persons only) to promote the use of computer and Internet for the village . Older people have difficulties in controlling their motor funtion primarily manifested with input devices (Mayhorn 2004). There are some applications that have been devoloped using touch screen or table pc to support communication with older persons and their families aboard. They prefer to use touch screen compared with to use mouse, however touch screen is expensive compare to mouse.
Nations of social presence and media richness are central to the understanding of communication media use. In a study of GP-GC relationships of 408 grandparents spanning four European countries (UK, Spai, Finland and Estonia), when grandparents lived far away from their grandchildren, they were willing to use mediated communication technology, i.e.,mobile phones with their SMS features and emails. However, other studies pointed out that the choice of media need to be considered carefully as some media can sway towards certain stereotypes of inter-group behaviour. Video also is a part of recommendation for long distance relationship with the family members, naturally everybody would like to see their family members regularly. In this study the grandparents will be assisted by other family members, GP and GC will meet online using video conference.
No comments:
Post a Comment