Vandana Vyas, M.A.

Vandana Vyas

Position

• Doctoral Student

Contact information

Short Biography

Vandana Vyas is an Erasmus doctoral fellow at Heidelberg University. She is also a doctoral student at Zakir Husain Centre for Educational Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi, India. She is pursuing her doctoral thesis on Lifelong Learning amongst the educated “Actively Ageing” elderly of Baden - Württemberg: An ethnographic study on Active Ageing. Since 2016, she has been working on “New Directions in ‘Active Ageing’ and ‘Age-Friendly Culture’ in India and Germany” a collaboration between Jawaharlal Nehru University, India and Heidelberg University, Germany. She has completed her M.Phil. and Masters in Sociology from JNU. Before this, she has pursued Bachelors in Journalism and Mass Communication from Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, New Delhi, following which she associated as a freelance journalist with various local and national media organizations at New Delhi. Her research interests are active ageing, lifelong learning, continuing education and higher education.

Title of PhD

Lifelong Learning amongst the educated “Actively Ageing” elderly of Baden - Württemberg: An ethnographic study on Active Ageing.

Short description

The purpose of the study is to explore the meaning of learning for educated older people of Germany; how they interpret and integrate ideas about active ageing within the social and cultural structure?; what are the learning activities they indulge in and why? Further, it aims to examine the role of community and denominational belonging in the life of older adults. Therefore, the thesis is an attempt to analyse their side of the story by conducting an ethnographic narrative analysis.