Men learn most in sheds by the same mechanisms as they typically learned over decades in the workplace: through doing, by watching, sharing, mentoring and through trial and error. Though the shed or workshop space does not have to be clean or fully ordered, it does have to be safe, someone has to be responsible at all times, and men have to have current competencies on all of the tools they use. Importantly, sheds in Australia work best when there is a social and community element, which includes a place to relax, eat and ‘have a cuppa’ within the shed. Indeed, it is important for sheds to also embrace men who enjoy and greatly benefit from coming voluntarily and doing nothing other than socialising, after a lifetime of compulsive, productive and sometimes dangerous activity for wages.


Wellbeing outcomes Third, it is important to recognise the learning and wellbeing outcomes from voluntary participation in other places and spaces in community settings, aside from men’s sheds for men beyond paid work, as indentified in our Senior men’s learning and wellbeing through community participation in Australia (2009) research for the National Seniors Australia Productive Ageing Centre. In effect, men’s sheds in Australia can be regarded as a sub- type of a much more extensive range of other community organisations that provide a critically important ‘third place’ (aside from work and home) as men age. In Australia, this particularly includes voluntary fire and emergency service organisations, but also sporting, age-related and religious, cultural and indigenous organisations. Our research shows that the quality of the engagement as well as the learning and wellbeing outcomes for older men experienced and achieved through participation in these ‘non-learning’ environments is richer, wider, more enduring and transformational than learning for interest or for vocational reasons through ACE or vocational education providers. Fourth, and finally, men’s sheds in community settings remind us that learning and health, while staffed and funded separately through public institutions and community facilities, are actually tightly related. Both are subject to the social determinants of health referred to earlier and are more able to deliver wellbeing benefits for adults beyond work if seen as complementary rather than as separate. The success of men’s sheds in community


settings has several possible, broader and more radical lessons for adult and community education. It may be both necessary and desirable to develop new forms of adult education for some older men in the form of gendered intervention focused on access, in order to redress known disadvantage and underachievement. 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. However, the ways in which women are able to work effectively with and alongside men in these community contexts, where men comprise the majority of participants, remains poorly understood and ripe for further theoretical investigation. The research provides strong support for


theories of situated learning and the notion of learning as participation as a starting point for examining the types of learning opportunities experienced by older men. Adult learning generally, and learning through community contexts in particular, is most effective when it is an ongoing, socially constructed, contextual process based on relational learning. Benefits are recognised in learning that allows adults to simultaneously engage one another around issues of culture, identity and difference and learn through engagement. The research also suggests that men who perceive inequitable treatment as parents or who feel damaged after failed relationships need sites and services away from home, supported and surrounded by other men, where they can feel valued, recover and relearn.


Hands-on learning The informal learning older men experience is shown to be most effective when it is social, local and situated. The research highlights the importance and effectiveness of hands-on learning through practical and group activities that contribute to local communities, particularly for older men who have negative recollections of formal learning at school and who are not in the paid workforce. Situated learning is shown to be particularly therapeutic for older men who have experienced a range of setbacks in later life and who would not otherwise be involved in community activity. The research confirms that men are able, in non-threatening social and situated contexts within a wide range of community organisations, to informally and positively share skills from their work lives with other men of all ages with a range of important benefits to their own wellbeing, to the wellbeing of other men and to their communities. The research also helps to explain the low


take up of, and negative attitudes towards, education and training, typical among older men who are not in paid work. While learning has been a deliberate focus in the research to date, it has the potential to inform wider, future studies of masculinity and wellbeing generally, and men’s health, employment, fatherhood and violence projects in particular. Learning is well known from the findings of the Inquiry into the Future for Lifelong Learning to be able to protect older adults from cognitive decline and support continued autonomy. There is evidence from this research in Australia of a need for adult learning organisations


to collaborate with other services that are concerned with wellbeing. Conversely, health- related organisations are sometimes unaware of the wellbeing benefits of active community involvement, including through learning. Finally, there is copious evidence from our


suite of research of the critically important role in Australia of community organisations in helping older men to learn about change. This particularly includes men learning to enhance their wellbeing to reshape their lives after a wide range of setbacks to do with family, identity, ageing, health and social and community relationships. It appears timely, as John Field recently observed, to tackle the persistent gap between medical and other approaches to wellbeing (2009, p. 36). While there is a widely acknowledged, general statistical correlation between levels of formal education, work, income and wellbeing, recent research in Australia has shown that the outcomes from lower-level vocational training are either minimal or negative for many adults. There is a general move by most nations towards more vocational training through ACE and TVET (technical vocational education and training) and away from funding and supporting adult and community education. This move may be appropriate for some younger and unemployed people but is totally inappropriate for older adults, particularly for older men who are not in work and typically retired.


Professor Barry Golding is a senior lecturer at the University of Ballarat’s School of Education, in Victoria, Australia


Further reading


Field, J., 2009, Well-being and happiness, Inquiry into the Future for Lifelong Learning, Thematic Paper 4, Leicester: NIACE


Golding, B., 2010, ‘Men’s informal learning and wellbeing beyond the workplace’, in S. Jackson (ed.), Innovations in lifelong learning, London: Routledge


Golding, B., 2011 (in press), ‘Social, local and situated: Recent findings about the effectiveness of older men’s informal learning in community contexts’, Adult Education Quarterly


Golding, B., Brown, M., Foley, A., Harvey, J. and Gleeson, L., 2007, Men’s sheds in Australia: Learning through community contexts, Adelaide: National Center for Vocational Education Research


McGivney, V., 1999, Excluded men: Men who are missing from education and training, Leicester: NIACE


McGivney, V., 2004, Men earn, women learn: Bridging the gender divide in education and training, Leicester: NIACE


Schuller, T. and Watson, D., 2009, Learning Through Life, Leicester: NIACE


APRIL 2011 ADULTS LEARNING 27


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32