The birthday card exercise: Replicating research as active learning.

One means to uncover common attitudes toward aging and older adults is to perform content analyses of popular print media forms such as newspapers, magazines, and even greeting cards. This active learning activity involves small groups of undergraduate students replicating, in a limited way, elements of a published research study on the messages conveyed by age-related birthday cards. In the exercise, each group of students is asked to analyze a set of 15 different birthday cards and to share qualitative and quantitative findings with classmates before submitting a written "discussion section" on their results to the instructor.

The raging grannies: defying stereotypes and embracing aging through activism.

The Raging Grannies are a group of older women who dress as "grannies" and alter the words of traditional songs to communicate political messages. Based on a review of song lyrics, participant observation, and interviews with 15 Grannies, this study explores Raging Granny activism and the strategic adoption of the grandmother identity. The Grannies challenge stereotypes of older women through the fact and forms of their activism, and they see their aged status as empowering and as something to be embraced.

"In the storminess": multi-disciplinary approaches to scriptural images representing ethical challenges in the pastor-congregant relationship.

In this qualitative study the authors examine the Scriptural images that 10 Lutheran pastors employed in describing the ethical challenges in the pastor-congregant relationship. The analysis of Scriptural images is part of a larger study on pastors' experiences of a mandatory workshop, "Crossing the Boundaries (CTB),"which is required of Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada (ELCIC) seminarians. The pastors' images were analyzed from the four perspectives of depth psychology, theology, social ethics, and sociology.