Social, local and situated: Recent findings about the effectiveness of older men's Informal learning in community contexts
- Authors: Golding, Barry
- Date: 2011
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Adult Education Quarterly Vol. 61, no. 2 (2011), p. 103-120
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- Description: The informal learning that older (age 50+) men experience in Australia has been the subject of a suite of recent, intensive, mixed methods research projects in community-based voluntary organizations. The purpose of the research was to examine where men are learning in these contexts beyond work and formal education rather than to assume and problematize older men as nonlearners. This article draws together strands of completed field research to suggest that learning is effective for older men in community settings when it is social, local, practical, situated, and in groups, particularly for older, sometimes isolated men who have experienced a range of setbacks in life. While older Australian men tend to be missing from adult and community education (ACE) providers, they are able to informally share hands-on skills from their work lives with other men of all ages, with a range of important benefits to their own well-being, the well-being of other men, and the well-being of their communities. Some future areas for comparative international research are identified.
Let the men speak : Health, friendship, community and shed therapy
- Authors: Foley, Annette , Golding, Barry , Brown, Michael
- Date: 2008
- Type: Text , Conference paper
- Relation: Paper presented at AVETRA 2008 Conference, Adelaide : 3rd-4th April 2008
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- Description: Our paper is based on our recently published NCVER project on Men's sheds in Australia, Learning through Community Contexts (Golding, Brown, Foley, Harvey & Gleeson, 2007), which showed that men';s sheds informally cater for non vocational, social, health, wellbeing and learning needs of mainly older men. We deliberately used unedited transcripts from the NCVER project in the form of narratives or stories to give the men an opportunity to speak for themselves about the benefits of participating in men's sheds. The paper highlights some of the limitations of the methodology used in the attempt to allow the men themselves to make sense of the benefits they experience and enjoy from participating in men's sheds as conveyed through their own voices.
- Description: 200300647
Men's sheds in Australia : Learning through community contexts
- Authors: Golding, Barry , Brown, Michael , Foley, Annette , Harvey, Jack , Gleeson, Lynne
- Date: 2007
- Type: Text , Book
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- Description: ‘Men’s sheds’ organisations are typically located in shed or workshop-type spaces in community settings that provide opportunities for regular hands-on activity by groups deliberately and mainly comprising men. Men’s sheds in community organisations are shown to be a relatively new, diverse and poorly known set of community-based, grass-roots organisations—found only in Australia. These informal spaces and programs in community settings have grown recently and rapidly in parts of mainly southern Australia with a higher proportion of older men not in paid work. Men’s sheds are typically organised by, and legally constituted through, existing community organisations. They usually provide a woodworking workshop space, tools and equipment and an adjacent social area in a public, shed-type setting. Some include a metalwork area and/or an adjacent garden.
- Description: 2003005525
A profile of men's sheds in Australia: Patterns, purposes, profiles and experiences of participants: Some implications for ACE and VET about engaging older men
- Authors: Golding, Barry
- Date: 2006
- Type: Text , Conference paper
- Relation: Paper presented at Global VET: Challenges at the global, national and local levels Conference 2006, Wollongong, New South Wales : 19th April, 2006
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- Description: This paper uses literature and survey results to explore several issues associated with the emergence and development of community-based men’s sheds in Australia and their relationship to both community and further education and the training system. It develops a series of questions about these developments and their relationship to the development of men as learners as well as the nature of education and voluntary organisations. The confirms for the first time, using compelling and rigorously collected survey data from participants, the critical value of men’s sheds in community settings in Australia to older men’s well being: particularly to their health, social enjoyment, ongoing learning capacity and ability to contribute to the community. The sheds, relatively recently created, now provide a valuable and critically important place for a wide range of mainly older men within safe, supervised settings in where approximately 150 such sheds are now found in southern Australia. They allow men to regularly meet and happily socialise, mainly with other men with tools, in a safe, familiar, shared workspace in a wide range of communities, situations and organisational types. The men who use men’s sheds respond positively to environments that allow them to feel at home and learn by doing, in practical, group situations with other men. This paper confirms the high potential of men’s sheds, if carefully configured and managed, to include and support men experiencing issues associated with retirement, health, social isolation, aging and significant change.
- Description: E1
- Description: 2003002043