Category: Refereed article

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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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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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Promoting social inclusion: emerging evidence from the Catalyst-Clemente program

Author/s: Peter Howard, Tim Marchant, Anne Hampshire, Jude Butcher, Luke Egan and Katrina Bredhauer

Edition: Volume 48, Number 3, November 2008

Summary: Catalyst-Clemente is an innovative educational program based upon a collaboration involving Australian Catholic University, Mission Australia and the St Vincent de Paul Society. The program enhances the transformational learning opportunities and re-engagement of disadvantaged people within the community. This paper reports on the origins and rationale of the program and initial research undertaken with the students. Six key themes of self, social interaction, relationships with others, learning, community participation and the future have been identified that represent the ways in which the program impacts upon the participants. The initial study suggests that Catalyst-Clemente is a practical educational solution that has resulted in enhancing the life opportunities and choices for disadvantaged Australians.

Keywords: Catalyst-Clemente, disadvantaged, impacts, outcomes

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Succession planning: does it matter in the context of corporate leadership?

Author/s: Patricia Richards

Edition: Volume 48, Number 3, November 2008

Summary: Corporations invest heavily in human resource management infrastructures intended amongst other things to provide for the future leadership needs of the corporation. Adopting well-known succession planning techniques, human resource managers routinely engage in corporate leadership identification and development processes, often directly involving the chief executive officer. This paper reports on a tendency for chief executive officers not to take all that much notice of these processes when making appointments to their own senior leadership teams. Drawing on three institutional case studies and in-depth interview data with the 12 chief executive officers, the paper shows that what appears to matter most in these appointments is likely impact of a leadership appointment on corporate profitability, though other pet leadership criteria may also be applied. The paper discusses the implications of this situation for human resource managers.

Keywords: human resources, leadership, manager, senior appointments

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Professional development for professionals: beyond sufficiency learning

Author/s: Gerald A. Murphy and Bruce A. Calway

Edition: Volume 48, Number 3, November 2008

Summary: We question the current role of professional associations in developing a culture of learning beyond a sufficiency or competency level. This brings into question the underlying philosophy of Professional Standards legislation. This legislation mandates continuing professional development for professionals without stating what should be achieved and how to achieve it. Professional development for professionals is influenced by the twin economic requirements of work-readiness and risk minimisation. These requirements, while important, do not necessarily account for career development of individual professionals needing to deal with complex and ill-structured paradigms. Therefore the paper argues the need for professional associations to develop learning environments which enable the effective continuing career development of professionals and sets out the essential elements for this learning environment – for example, work-integrated learning, contextualised constructivism and self-directed learning. The paper also discusses the potential within professional associations to develop cultures and communities for learning.

Keywords: professional development, work-readiness, risk minimisation, work-integrated learning, contextualised constructivism, self-directed learning

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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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Workplace learning: depression as an ‘undiscussable’ topic in eight information and communications technology organisations in South Australia

Author/s: Lisa Davies

Edition: Volume 48, Number 2, July 2008

Summary: More than 800,000 Australians every year are affected by depression. Despite evidence that depression is manageable, that people can be successfully treated in individually appropriate ways and that earlier identification and treatment are associated with  more rapid recovery, depression appears to be poorly recognised and understood. In this paper, I focus on depression in the workplace. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with human resource managers in eight organisations within the deregulated information and computing technology sector in South Australia. I focus on managers’ ability to access information about depression, and their beliefs about the value of work-based education about the illness. I also report on managers’ understandings of prevailing attitudes towards depression and mental health education in their workplaces. The analysis is conducted within a qualitative, interpretive framework.

Keywords: mental health, depression, workplace, managers, access, information

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Listening to individual voices and stories – the mature-age student experience

Author/s: Cathy Stone

Edition: Volume 48, Number 2, July 2008

Summary: This paper presents the findings of a qualitative research project, part of a doctoral thesis, which examines the impact of university study on a group of 20 female and male mature-age students at the University of Newcastle, Australia, who have entered university via a non-traditional pathway. These students are in the second to final years of their undergraduate degree programs and have all faced significant hurdles in gaining university entrance and continuing with their studies. The majority have come from lower socio-economic backgrounds, with little, if any, family history of higher education and little positive experience of prior study. This paper gives voice to their stories – their triumphs and achievements as well as their struggles – and highlights the important role that publicly funded institutions can play, not only in widening access to higher education, but also in encouraging and assisting students from a diverse range of backgrounds to participate fully in higher education and achieve their goals.

Keywords: mature-age students, non-traditional pathways, qualitative research

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Houses and sheds in Australia: an exploration of the genesis and growth of neighbourhood houses and men’s sheds in community settings

Author/s: Barry Golding, Helen Kimberley, Annette Foley and Mike Brown

Edition: Volume 48, Number 2, July 2008

Summary: This article reviews research into the genesis and spread of both neighbourhood houses and learning centres in Victoria and community-based men’s sheds in Australia to identify some similarities and differences. Our article asks questions about the gendered communities of practice that underpin houses for women on the one hand, and sheds for men on the other. Our particular interest is with the gender issues associated with the development of the relatively mature neighbourhood house ‘sector’, and those associated with the very recent and developing community-based men’s sheds ‘sector’. Our underpinning research question has to do with the desirability (or otherwise) in each of these sectors of political and strategic decisions being either gender specific or gender neutral. We identify a number of tantalising parallels between the rationale behind the establishment of both sectors, for women and men, albeit in very different circumstances, along with some obvious differences.

Keywords: neighbourhood houses, men’s sheds, comparison, gender

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Professional knowledge formation and organisational capacity-building in ACE: lessons from the Victorian Research Circles

Author/s: John McIntyre

Edition: Volume 48, Number 2, July 2008

Summary: The national reform agenda of the Council of Australian Governments challenges community education agencies to contribute to its goals and raises questions about their capacity to do so. It is crucial to define the conditions that are necessary to develop the capability of adult and community education (ACE) organisations to play a broader social and economic role. These include not only policy frameworks underwritten by strategic research, but the engagement of practitioners and organisations. The recent development in Victoria of Circles of Professional Research Practice, a form of participatory action research designed to promote such an engagement by ACE organisations, is analysed, drawing on material from an evaluation of the Circles intended to capture the experience, document its outcomes and recommend on its future applications. The article reviews the rationale of the Research Circles, describes aspects of their operation and analyses the factors creating conditions favourable to professional knowledge formation and organisational capacity-building. In doing so, the Research Circles are theorised as a ‘negotiable space’ constructed at the intersection of policy, research and practice, drawing out implications for capacity-building in Australian community education and training organisations.

Keywords: ACE organisations, social, economic, role, engagement, circles of professional research practice

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