Call for Papers: LINKING AGES (23th – 24th October 2018, Goethe University, Frankfurt on the Main)

Both childhood and aging studies have gained importance during the past decades. However, they are hardly ever thought together. We believe that bringing together perspectives from both ends of the life-course can create fruitful new insights. This is not to say that children and older people share the same needs and interests, nor approach these life stages from a normative perspective, but we aim to gain a critical, holistic understanding.

We are a group of young researchers working on transitions during childhood and later life in the course of a DFG-funded research training group called “Doing Transitions” (http://www.doingtransitions.org) at Goethe University (Frankfurt on the Main) and Eberhard Karls University (Tübingen). Coming from a wide range of disciplines, we look at transitions in childhood and later life from different perspectives: practice theories, governance research, dispositive analysis, and environmental psychology.

We invite young researchers for a two-day workshop at Goethe University Frankfurt on the Main to discuss with us: How can we think childhood and ageing studies together? What do we gain by combining theoretical and/or methodological perspectives from both fields?

If you would like to participate, please send the following to

Wanka@em.uni-frankfurt.de until June 15th:

– Name, affiliation, current position, subjective age 

– Short abstract of your current research (theory, research question, methods; max. 1 page)

– Which question would you like to discuss during the workshop?

For a selected number of participants we can subsidize travel expenses, if your home institution cannot cover them.

We are looking forward to seeing you in Frankfurt!

Anna, Deborah, Helena, Miriam & Tabea