Category: ACE

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Teaching for social capital outcomes: the case of adult literacy and numeracy courses

Author/s: Jo Balatti, Stephen Black and Ian Falk

Edition: Volume 47, Number 2, July 2007

Summary: There is strong evidence that participation in education and training can produce social capital outcomes. There is also strong evidence that such outcomes are useful outcomes; they can enhance the development of other outcomes often called human capital and they can contribute to the social-economic wellbeing of the learners and the communities in which they live. Yet, little research has been done on the pedagogy and other conditions that produce social capital outcomes in education and training. This paper reports on a research project that investigated what teachers do to produce social capital outcomes in adult literacy and numeracy courses.

Keywords: social capital outcomes, human capital, wellbeing, socio-economic

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Developing speaking skills of adult learners in private universities in Bangladesh: problems and solutions

Author/s: Sabrin Farooqui

Edition: Volume 47, Number 1, April 2007

Summary: The globalisation of English and a growing demand for good English-speaking skills in the job market in particular have been placing a greater emphasis on the teaching of English speaking skills in Bangladesh. The private universities emphasise developing English skills. It seems that students of public and private universities have the same level of proficiency when they start but, at the end of four years of study, the students of private universities have acquired a higher level of proficiency in English.  With observation, document analysis and a series of interviews with teachers who are teaching English language in these private universities, this study investigates how these private universities are helping the students to develop English language skills. It explores teachers’ perceptions of the problems students encounter while speaking English and the factors that help these learners to develop their speaking skills.

Keywords: globalisation, English-speaking skills, Bangladesh, skill development

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Human capital development: reforms for adult and community education

Author/s: Sarojni Choy & Sandra Haukka

Edition: Volume 47, Number 1, April 2007

Summary: The adult and community education (ACE) sector is consistently responsive to changing community needs and government priorities. It is this particular function that has drawn ACE into the lifelong learning debate as one model for sustaining communities. The responsiveness of ACE means that the sector and its programs continue to make valuable contributions to the quality of social and economic life, particularly in local communities. Although a major focus of ACE is on non-vocational outcomes, there is potential for the sector to make a greater contribution to the human capital stream of the Council of Australian Governments’ National Reform Agenda. This paper briefly describes the ACE sector and its current provisions, and proposes ways in which it could make a greater contribution to the human capital stream of the National Reform Agenda. Reforms to ACE are critical at a time when the Australian Government is planning activities for the Reform Agenda, when there is an urgent need of skilled workers, when the ageing population is seeking pathways and opportunities for economic outcomes, and when traditional vocational education and training providers are unable to meet the skill shortages experienced by industry across Australia. This paper attempts to initiate debate around an enhanced role for ACE, in terms of not only the Reform Agenda, but also a rather more defined position in meeting the learning and skilling needs of the broader community.

Keywords: ACE sector, National Reform Agenda, ageing population, skilled workers, vocational education

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Getting connected: insights into social capital from recent adult learning research

Author/s: Barry Golding

Edition: Volume 47, Number 1, April 2007

Summary: This paper begins by teasing out the nature of social capital and its particular and current relevance to adult learning policy and practice in Australia. The paper identifies a number of benefits and significant problems with social capital as an organising construct for adult learning research and policy in Australia. Some connections are made between social capital and lifelong learning, and important distinctions are drawn between ‘bonding’ and ‘bridging’ social capital. I draw on my experiences and insights over the past seven years using network diagrams as a research tool. Network diagrams are identified as a useful tool for charting relationships between learning organisations and individuals. The paper suggests ways of using the network relationships in these diagrams as a proxy for social capital in a range of formal and informal settings in which adult learning occurs in Australia. Network diagrams are seen to have particular utility in situations where communities and organisations become too small for surveys, where relationships become complex and ambiguous as well as in rural and remote communities where distance and spatial relationships affect access to learning.

Keywords: social capital, adult learning, policy, practice, research, lifelong learning

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The role of the University of the Third Age in meeting needs of adult learners in Victoria, Australia

Author/s: Roger Harris

Edition: Volume 48, Number 3, November 2008

Summary: Many older adults are interested in learning long past the age dictated by social norms. Some want to learn simply for the joy of learning, others because of the social contacts made by joining a community of learners, and still others want to learn so that they have a purpose in life. The University of the Third Age (U3A) is one of several models for lifelong education after retirement which have been developed worldwide. This article reports on a survey which explored the experiences of U3A members of two selected U3As in Victoria, Australia. The findings indicated that respondents were satisfied with their U3A experiences which had contributed in various areas of their lives leading to personal, mental, social and physical enhancement. It emerged that U3A is an important means of enhancing the quality of life for older adults through the provision of lifelong education.

Keywords: older adults, social norms, learning, social, lifelong learning, quality of life

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Diverse pleasures: informal learning in community

Author/s: Phoenix de Carteret

Edition: Volume 48, Number 3, November 2008

Summary: In this paper I suggest that social dances and local markets are examples of resilient practices of place-making and community that involve active participation. These two activities create mobile and pliant communities of participants that involve considerable informal and incidental learning. With dances and markets in mind, I look at the two concepts, social capital and community, that are used to link adult education and development and explore the notion of place. Place is conceived here as necessarily involving the inter-relationship of environment, social and economic landscapes. Somerville’s place pedagogy framework is introduced as a methodological approach to research informal learning in the two activities and explore the pedagogies that sustain social attributes broadly conceived under the umbrella of social capital. The paper establishes dances and markets as a nexus of people, place and purpose, a ground from which to research the informal learning that occurs in these diverse pleasures.

Keywords: resilience, active participation, dance, social capital, adult education

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An appreciative inquiry into the transformative learning experiences of students in a family literacy project

Author/s: David Giles and Sharon Alderson

Edition: Volume 48, Number 3, November 2008

Summary: Educational discourse has often struggled to genuinely move beyond deficit-based language. Even action research, a predominant model for teacher development, starts with the identification of a problem (Cardno 2003). It would appear that the vocabulary for a hope-filled discourse which captures the imagination and influences our future educational activity seems to have escaped us. Moreover, we seem bereft of educational contexts where the experience for students is holistic and transformative. Appreciative inquiry is a research approach that seeks to facilitate change based on participants’ actual experiences of best practice (Cady & Caster 2000, Cooperrider & Srivastva 1987, English, Fenwick & Parsons 2003, Hammond 1998, Hammond & Royal 1998). Based on assumptions that ‘in every organisation something works’ and ‘if we are to carry anything of our past forward in our lives, it should be the good things’, appreciative inquiry energises participants to reach for higher ideals (Hammond 1998, Hammond & Royal 1998). Rather than giving priority to the problems in our current practice, appreciative inquiry gives attention to evidence of successful practice. In this way, proponents describe it as ‘dream forming’ and ‘destiny creating’. This paper will outline an appreciative inquiry with adult students in the context of a tertiary bridging program. The inquiry was able to capture the students’ stories of transformative learning experiences.

Keywords: change, experience, appreciative inquiry, adult learners, bridging, transformative learning

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“Do the thing you think you cannot do”: The imperative to be an adult learner in order to be a more effective adult educator

Author/s: Janet MacLennan

Edition: Volume 48, Number 2, July 2008

Summary: Despite the fact that we are learning more and more about the particular challenges and possibilities of teaching adult learners, we may still be overlooking – or forgetting – some of the most fundamental aspects of what makes an effective educator of adults. This paper addresses this oversight by reminding adult educators of the imperative of being adult learners to gain continuous new insights into their craft. The reader is taken on the author’s own journey of realising and enacting this imperative.

Keywords: teaching, adult learners, effective, educators

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‘They’re funny bloody cattle’: encouraging rural men to learn

Author/s: Soapy Vallance and Barry Golding

Edition: Volume 48, Number 2, July 2008

Summary: Our paper examines and analyses the contexts and organisations in rural and regional communities that informally and effectively encourage men to learn. It is based on a combination of local, rural adult education practice and a suite of studies in Australia and elsewhere of learning in community contexts, most recently into community-based men’s sheds. It is underpinned by both experience and research evidence that many rural men tend to have an aversion to formal learning. The intention of our paper and its specific, practical conclusions and recommendations is to focus  on and share positive and practical ways, demonstrated through practice and validated through research, of encouraging rural men to learn.

Keywords: rural, regional, communities, informal learning, adult education, practice

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The ‘accidental activist’: learning, embodiment and action

Author/s: Tracey Ollis

Edition: Volume 48, Number 2, July 2008

Summary: The 21st century has seen renewed interest in activism, community development and social change globally (Kenny 2006). This paper outlines the educational significance of the learning practices of activists as they engage within and against the state. In an era of adult education which emphasises lifelong learning and learning in the workplace, this article explores the holistic practices of activists as they learn from one another in a social context or ‘on the job’. Adult activists act with agency, their learning is purposive; it is resolute and they are there and act for a reason. This learning is not only cognitive but also embodied; it is learning often associated with the emotions of passion, anger, desire and a commitment to social change. Drawing on current research in Australia, attention is given to an important but at times forgotten epistemology of adult learning.

Keywords: activism, learning practices, adult education, lifelong learning

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