is elsewhere in contemporary Western society. This translates into ageist

discourses in many forms that provide the principal framework people uti-

lize to interpret the experience of aging and to enact their age identity. This

was confirmed by the narratives and stories the participants in the study

told. It also became evident in their enactment of age that age identity cannot

easily be separated from their other identities; age is often interwoven with

gender, ethnicity and social class.

Age and Second Language Acquisition: What We
Have Learned

I now return to the research questions that provided the initial impulse

for this study and discuss what was learned.

• How is age coconstructed in the EFL classroom context and in the per-

sonal narratives of adult language learners?

The data generated by interviews, classroom observations and the audio-

taped narrative accounts of the participants in the study contributed to a

better understanding of how age is constructed by English language learners

in Mexico. It became clear in their narratives and in their interaction with

the teacher and classmates that these language students positioned them-

selves and were positioned by others in the three general categories of older,

‘middle’ (or merely ‘adult’) and young adults. This is noteworthy because

there were no disputed cases, suggesting that many tacit cultural discourses

are at play. Not surprisingly, these three age categories bear only a tenuous

relationship to chronological age. Other factors were seen to carry more

weight. Although the selection of participants included someone from each

‘decade’, the way they positioned themselves in the three general categories

fell, coincidentally, along gender lines. The older participants were both men

and the midlife adults were all women. The only young adult was male.

It was also interesting to note that Berta, for instance, is closer in chron-

ological age to both Hector and Felix than to any of the ‘middle’ adult par-

ticipants, yet she is unequivocally positioned as a ‘middle’ adult. This is

likely to change once she stops working, for what emerged in the study is

that one of the significant factors in determining the boundary between

‘middle’ and later adulthood among these participants is retirement from

the work force. At the other end of the spectrum, the divide between young

and ‘middle’ adulthood seems to revolve around the issue of responsibility.

Young adults, specifically university students such as David, are perceived

as being largely free of the economic and emotional responsibilities that

family and work entail.

An unexpected finding was the discovery that ‘middle’ adulthood is at

present an undefined category in Mexico, distinguishable only by the

Final Ref lec t ions 153