Exploring contemporary challenges of intergenerational education in lifelong learning societies : an introduction

The concept of generation refers to the idea of generativity, and recalls a link of ancestry and descendance, yet in the full sense of the notion of generations and intergenerational relations, we go beyond the generative con-nections to recall the idea of identity constructions as a crossroads of family, social, historical,and political rela-tionships. In this contribution and, more generally, in this special issue, we will try to look at the concept of generations from an educational perspective, focusing on the potential of intergenerational relations as a space for building communities based on heritage transmission, active citizenship and solidarity. The concept of pos-itive intergenerational interdependence is increasingly common in the institutional andacademic debate, and education can play an important role in promoting intergenerational solidarity: a strategic response to the major challenges affecting our communities.