for the educational and vocational and more with making sense of life (and approaching death), overcoming the risk of social isolation, staying healthy and remaining independent. The reality is that very few formal educational programmes or sectors embody any of these needs for older men. While recognition of low formal ‘literacy’ levels associated with limited school experiences is seen by some as the key to the problem of access to ‘higher’ levels of learning, we also know that there is much face and time lost for older adults in admitting to illiteracy and to formally addressing it. Women tend to embrace the informality


of adult and community education (ACE) as learners, for a range of reasons aside from the obvious vocational ones. Learning in its own right, in a social and supportive environment with other women, can be life-changing and transformational. Given that far fewer men are similarly transformed, it is perhaps time to ask whether it is men’s attitudes to learning, the learning environment in ACE, the preponderance of women as learners and teachers, or the overt foregrounding and naming of learning as both the activity and the outcome that men find off-putting. The answer seems to lie in the combination of all four factors, as the 2007 Men’s sheds in Australia research has shown.


Potted history At this point a brief, potted history of men’s sheds in community settings is in order. Backyard ‘sheds’ in Australia are familiar and culturally iconic to many older Australian men as mainly male refugia: somewhere where men can go, usually on their own, but sometimes with ‘mates,’ to feel ‘at home’ and ‘do stuff ’, typically fixing and making things. Workshop-type spaces are also known to be important to men in several other nations, though by other names. Around 15 years ago in Australia a small number of grassroots organisations were created that catered for men’s shed-based interests and needs beyond the backyard shed, in community settings. This small number has rapidly expanded to around 500 sheds in Australia, 30 in New Zealand, and around 20 in Ireland. Age UK has been piloting three sheds in England. While the shed origins, activities, locations and associations are diverse, the common element of community men’s sheds is that men come together to do things socially, regularly, and hands-on in a workshop-type setting, where they feel valued, at home and contribute positively to their community and to other men. Importantly, their involvement is voluntary and collaborative and they are not patronised as students, clients, customers or patients. In the process, their identities as men beyond work and their lives, health and wellbeing are also positively enhanced. This includes ‘men talking shoulder to shoulder’ rather than ‘face to face’, a motto of the men’s shed movement and the Australian Men’s Sheds Association.


26 ADULTS LEARNING APRIL 2011


While all men are welcome in sheds, some


specialise in working with war veterans, refugees, men who live on their own, men with dementia, or men with acquired brain injury. Some sheds are mainly for Aboriginal men, men in residential aged or day care, unemployed men or men who left school early. Others are for former tradesmen and farmers. In some rural and remote communities, sheds cater for all comers. While men of all ages are attracted to sheds, the average age of around 65 years is indicative of the fact that sheds are of most interest and benefit to men’s lives and identities ‘beyond work’, through age retirement, unemployment, disability or early withdrawal from the workforce.


Adult education So what might adult education providers and the adult and community education sector learn from the incredible growth of the


of gender segmentation in other education sectors and the workplace already produce a comprehensive gendering of outcomes for men and women in most other developed nations, in which, as Veronica McGivney observed, men tend to earn, and women tend to learn. On this point, some people contend that


sheds are undesirable because they reinforce existing male stereotypes and should therefore be open to participation by both men and women. While some sheds do include and welcome women, most are mainly or solely for men. Our research shows that one of the attractions and benefits of sheds to men (and women) with partners is that they help avoid ‘underfoot syndrome’ and a place to positively socialise and contribute to the community away from each other for a short time each week. As well as for men who live alone, men’s sheds also meet the critical learning needs


“Whilst some males need and access adult education of a similar kind to that accessed by women, our research has confirmed that men who are most disadvantaged and most disengaged benefit most from a male-gendered community of practice which works to enhance their quality of engagement”


men’s sheds movement in Australia? First, it is an acknowledgment that gender can and does matter. Not all men feel comfortable learning in places and spaces where women predominate as participants and staff. It is already widely accepted that for many women with difficult past lives, being with men is not always conducive, in the first instance, to their recovery and wellbeing. Our research in Men’s sheds in Australia: Learning through community contexts (NCVER, 2007) showed that the same tends to be true for men, and that the most benefit for the most damaged men tends to come through the support and the ‘shoulder- to-shoulder’ company of other men. Our research shows that men recognise many (but not all) adult and community education providers as female spaces. I would go further and argue that many ACE providers are oblivious to this recognition, and tend, in this sense, towards gender blindness. As difficult as it is to accept from a gender equity perspective, the reality is that a combination


identified in the introduction for men beyond paid work: including retirement, overcoming the risk of social isolation, staying healthy and remaining independent. Second, it is important to acknowledge


that the preferred pedagogies operating in workshop-type settings such as sheds are indicative of legitimate and important ways for men to learn. They provide an alternative to men who are otherwise, as acknowledged by Schuller and Watson (2009, p. 70), ‘more likely to learn at work or independently’ than women. Our research shows that Australian men learn best when the learning is not named or fore-grounded, when it is hands- on, enjoyable, outside and social. Sheds are generally free of the characteristics of ‘higher’ educational spaces that can be off-putting to men with limited (and sometimes negative) experiences of formal, ordered, structured, accredited and prose- or content-based curriculum and assessment which includes teachers.


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