Hi Jordana. This is a really tough question. You're right that it's generally best to avoid using 'elders' except in the usages you mentioned ["Respect your elders", "the village elders" or as an adjective (My elder brother)]. In this sentence, we could use "the elders' tradition" if we are referring to a community which has 'elders', meaning 'village elders' - a group of old people in a small(ish) community who have power or influence. But it wouldn't be appropriate in a modern society, like you say. ""A clash between older people's' tradition and young people's acculturation" would be more appropriate. I have been thinking hard about "The clash between the elderly's tradition and the young's acculturation" or "The clash between the old's tradition and the young's acculturation?". I think these are fine grammatically but just sound odd to me. I think we would probably say "The clash between the tradition(s) of the elderly and the acculturation of the young" or "or "The clash between the tradition(s) of the old and the acculturation of the young". This is probably due to the use of "the" before elderly and "old" but I couldn't say for sure. Probably a very obscure usage rule. Language is complicated!

Please