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This paper poses three research questions, based primarily on evidence from six decades of the Australian Journal of Adult Education (AJAL, 2000-present) and its antecedent journals dating back to 1961. Firstly, it asks what was the context for establishing a national adult learning association, Australian Association of Adult Education (AAAE) in 1960, renamed the Australian Association for Adult and Community Education (AACE) in 1989, and Adult Learning Australia (ALA) in 1998? Secondly, it asks how the association, the research in its journals and the field of adult education adapted to the rapidly changing context, opportunities and needs for lifelong learning in Australia? In doing so, the paper critically examines evidence of ongoing tensions and difficulties delivering on ALA's 2020 vision of 'lifelong and lifewide learning for all Australians'. It also asks what the current situation is for Australian adult education, and what possible new courses for the future ALA and AJAL might take. The first two research questions are addressed in the body of this paper. The third question is addressed primarily within the discussion.

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Consistent with the ‘looking back, moving forward’ conference theme, in this paper we undertake a critical, research-based appraisal of the current, arguably neglected state of adult education in Australia in 2010, and proceed to paint a picture of how a different and potentially more positive future might be realised. Firstly, we emphasise situations (including states and territories) in Australia in which adult education is seen to be lacking or missing for particular groups of adults. Secondly we emphasise research evidence confirming the demonstrable value of learning for purposes other than those that are immediately vocational. We identify links between lifelong and lifewide learning on one hand, and health and wellbeing on the other. Part of the paper involves international comparisons with other forms of adult learning that Australia might learn from, adapt or borrow. We make particular reference to research underpinning the recent ‘Inquiry into the future of lifelong learning’ by NIACE [National Institute of Adult Continuing Education] in the United Kingdom. Our first main conclusion has to do with equity. Adult and community education (ACE) in Australia is currently seen to be least available or accessible to those Australians with the most limited and most negative experiences of school education, but the most need to learn in non-vocational domains. These groups include older Australians, some men and women, people not in paid work, and rural, isolated and Indigenous people. Our second main conclusion is that, to realise adult learning’s future potential, we need changes to government policies, research and practice that acknowledge and actively support the broader nature and value of learning for life across all age groups. To paraphrase research from Belgium by Sfard (2008), based around Beck’s (1986) exploration of reflexive modernity, the adult education function of ACE is in dire straits, unless education is seen as being much more valuable than the sum of individual vocational competencies, and particularly unless it is also recognised, valued and supported as one of many valuable outcomes of social, lifelong and lifewide learning throughout the community.

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The past decade has seen an increasing volume and range of research on adult and community education (ACE) in Australia, sponsored by multiple sources and targeted to multiple audiences for professional, philosophical, financial and political purposes. This report provides a consolidation of this large body of qualitative and quantitative research on the scope of ACE participation patterns, on the outcomes and contributions of ACE and on the opportunities and challenges facing ACE throughout the decade. It identifies the key strands of research effort as well as research gaps and suggests future research directions. The study highlights the diversity of ACE across Australia and explores implications for its boundaries, its relationship to government and community and its amenability to national research and policy. Show less

Men, particularly older men, are largely missing as adult learners in Europe. The same problem persists on the opposite side of the globe. In Australia older men have many learning needs, yet are put off by explicit attempts to include them in learning. In this article Australian researcher Barry Golding presents a working solution to getting older men into learning. In community-run 'men's sheds' men engage in hands-on activities such as woodwork. At the same time they develop their identities as men and with men and learn to stay healthy in settings beyond work. The learning and wellbeing benefits work best for men if the activities and the outcomes are not named or fore-grounded. Now men's sheds practices are spreading also to European countries, assuming local forms and themes.

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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.

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This document reports on a study aimed at examining the nature and extent of the contribution of adult and community education (ACE) to vocational education and training (VET) in Australia, and in particular the ways in which VET provision complements the other provisions in the ACE sector and how it enhances opportunities for learners. The report documents and describes the extent and types of VET delivered by the ACE sector nationally, identifies the strengths the ACE sector brings to this provision, and describes the challenges faced by the ACE sector in providing VET programs. The findings and conclusions of the project are contained in the executive summary of this report. Show less

This paper examines the learning experienced through participation by men in two quite different two motor sports organisations in Western Australia. It relies on interview data from volunteers about what they do and what they learn as a consequence of their participation in staging complex but safe, competitive, public events. The paper provides evidence of a deep well of learning and wide range of skills produced as a consequence of participation. This learning would rarely be recognised as education or training, illustrating the need for caution when concluding that adult education is not taking place and learning outcomes are not being achieved other than through courses where teaching occurs, or in contexts that are regarded as literary. What skills men learnt, though significant as outcomes, were not the object of the motor sport activity, supporting Biesta's (2006) view that the amassing of knowledge and skills can be achieved in other valuable ways aside from through education.

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Our paper focuses on delineating and scoping international Women's Sheds, a movement that has emerged within the past decade, mainly in Australia, Ireland and the UK. It addresses two main research questions. Firstly, what is the origin, distribution, nature and intent of Women's Sheds internationally to March 2021? Secondly, how might Women's Sheds be located within a typology inclusive of Men's Sheds and a range of community development models? We employed a systematic search via the internet in 2020-21, followed up by attempted email or phone contact to publicly reported Women's Sheds and like organisations internationally. In the process, we created a publicly shareable blog including a database of 122 existing, previously active, developing or planned Women's Sheds and like organisations to 13 March 2021. We identify four nations where self-identified Women's Sheds have operated or commenced within the past decade: Australia (61), the UK (30), Ireland (28) and New Zealand (3), particularly during the five years between 2014 and 2019. The [Coronavirus Disease 2019] COVID-19 pandemic seriously curtailed this previous momentum and development after March 2020. We identify some similarities but also important differences between Women's and Men's Sheds. We propose a typology that accounts not only for the different ways in which Women's Sheds operate and women participate within their communities but also the different ways in which they locally collaborate (or not) with Men's Sheds in different countries. We conclude that Women's Sheds have largely been created by women in order to claim the shed as a positive female gendered space, in order to create an alternative community of women's hands-on practice.

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Movement (articulation) from the university sector to the vocational education and training (VET) sector in Australia was virtually unknown until studies by Golding beginning in 1993. This paper begins by identifying factors which led to the discovery of the phenomenon and its prevalence as well as to the development of a two-way model of movement to explain it. It summarises what is now known about university to TAFE movement and the associated recognition (credit transfer). It also discusses implications of that movement for the VET sector, including adult and community education (ACE), and of teaching VET classes which may include a substantial proportion of former university students, around half of whom are university graduates. Some implications are also identified for students, teachers, VET providers and also for policy makers. Finally, the paper identifies problems and some solutions associated with management, measurement and modelling of two-way, inter-sectoral movement and recognition between the VET and university sectors in Australia.

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This paper was also presented at the Third National Conference of the Australian Vocational Education and Training Research Association (AVETRA), Future Research, Research Futures, held in Canberra on 23-24 March 2000 (indexed at TD/TNC 64.497). Show less

In 1999 the Adult, Community and Further Education Board (Victoria) launched the first further education conceptual framework produced in Australia under the title 'Transforming lives transforming communities'. The transformation of lives through learning occurs both within the adult community education sector and within the wider training system. That adult education in the community can transform lives and transform communities may have appeared to the uninitiated to be a bold claim. The ten community portraits contained in this publication leave no doubt that the Adult Community Education (ACE) sector in Victoria does just that, unobtrusively, routinely and consistently. The ten portraits in this book show how locally owned adult education turns everyday learning into social and economic wellbeing. Taken alone, each portrait gives us a particular insight into the daily transformation of adults and their local communities. Put together, the group portrait shows how strongly ACE is growing the community asset we call social capital. Show less