Resources for Educators
Below are resources appropriate for educators wishing to include a unit on muligenerational living in their course. The material can be covered in approximately four to six hours of classroom instruction.
Power Point Presentation
To download the power-point presentation (with notes) click here. The file is quite large and may take between 2 and 20 minutes to download. Once you’ve downloaded it please feel free to copy it to your machine and use and/or revise it as you like. To save a pdf version of this file, click here.
Suggested Readings
- All in the Family: A Practical Guide to Successful Multigenerational Living, Niederhaus and Graham (2nd edition, Taylor Trade, 2007).
- Book Review (of the first edition, Together Again) by Dr. Paul Roodin, SUNY Oswego in Journal of Intergenerational Relationships, 6(2), 2008, 237-239.
- Pew Research Center Report: A record 60.6 million Americans live in multigenerational households, August 11, 2016.
- Pew Research Center Report: The Return of the Multi-Generational Household, March 18, 2010.
- Coldwell Banker Survey Identifies Multi-Generational Homes as a Trend in Real Estate, February 22, 2010.
- California Center for Population Research, UCLA (December 2006), “Intergenerational Ties: Alternative Theories, Empirical Findings and Trends, and Remaining Challenges.”
- We also recommend a provocative pair of articles (pros and cons) on multigenerational living from the popular press: “The Gang’s All Here,” San Francisco Chronicle, August 9, 2009 and a New York Times article on multigenerational living and hard economic times, May 4, 2009.
Videos
- Video: see the Good Morning America segment on multigenerational living, April 20, 2007.
- Video: see the CBS This Morning, YouTube video tour of the new multigenerational design by KB Homes. Notice the conflict in the kitchen and mention of the mother-in-law’s friends knocking on her bedroom window. Not ideal.
- Video: see the tour of a new multigenerational design by Lennar that includes a separate kitchen and entrance – both important advantages of the designs represented in the video just above.
Suggested Assignments:
- Visit and assess a local nursing home.
- Interview someone living in a multigenerational household. Ask about the advantages and disadvantages, the pluses and minuses of the arrangement. Ask how the housing and the house rules have been adjusted to accommodate the new proximity.
- Pick a local neighborhood and determine the local restrictions on multigenerational living, accessory apartments, etc. Determine how they might bechanged to allow more flexible housing arrangements.