A survey of men’s lifelong learning

in Australian rural towns

Barry Golding

University of Ballarat, Australia

Paper presented at the 35th Annual SCUTREA Conference July 5-July 7 2005, University of Sussex, England, UK

Introduction

This research investigated men’s learning preferences in small (population <2,500) rural towns (ARIAi>2.0) with an ACE (adult and community education) provider but no VET (vocational education and training).ii If men did not use the public ACE provider and were unable to travel away, their learning was primarily informal, particularly through involvement as volunteers in community organisations beyond ACE. The survey employed was novel in several senses. It was targeted only to men: in ACE and five different community organisations in ten towns with ready access to local ACE but not to VET. It was deliberately inclusive of informal learning through community involvement and customised to the different organisations including ACE in each town to increase response rates and avoid confusion with the poorly understood generic term ‘ACE’. The otherwise identical surveys asked a diverse sample of relatively involved men in small rural towns about their learning experiences, attitudes and preferences. The survey was premised on the hypothesis that much important informal learning for men occurs beyond the bounds of ‘courses’ in ‘providers’.

Rationale

Studies of men’s learning in ACE in Australia are relatively rare. Exceptions include a small, unpublished study of men in an ACE program (Byrne 2002) and Golding, Harvey and Echter’s (2004) recent study. McGivney’s research (1999, 2004) in the UK has been important and influential in the field. Studies that are conducted tend to be undertaken in relatively ‘charged’ political environments, partly because of concerns about a male ‘backlash’ after decades of concern to increase outcomes from education and training for women, and partly because the complex findings of such research can easily be simplified, misconstrued and misused. Studies of men in ACE are particularly problematic because the sector and most providers – whose staff are mainly women - have tended to deliberately position themselves as being mainly for and by women. As McGivney (1999, p.69) suggested, ACE ‘is seen as a service for women and consequently has limited appeal for men.’

It is important from the outset to state the obvious and widespread impact of gender on learning and work for all adults. Most fields of study, and remuneration in occupations remain gendered, the latter in favour of men. Access, participation and outcomes in most learning sectors differ by gender. Many learning networks include (or exclude) on the basis of gender. Family roles and responsibilities are particularly highly gendered.

That said, this study did not seek to compare men’s experiences of learning with women’s experiences. It presupposed, supported by Australian data over decades, that men were much less likely to use ACE and use it somewhat differently. Rather, this survey-based research sought to identify statistically significant learning-related factors within the selected men’s sample across several small rural town-based community organisations used by men. It sought to provide clues – largely missing in the literature, as to how men’s learning might be configured to meet the specific needs of different groups of men in as well as beyond ACE.

Recent research into ACE and learning in small and rural towns (Falk, Golding and Balatti 2000; Golding, Davies and Volkoff 2002; Hayes Golding and Harvey 2004) confirm that women significantly outnumber men as participants in ACE: not only as students, but also as coordinators, staff, committee members and teachers. ACE programs and services are therefore logically and typically skewed towards the particular needs of women who make up the majority of ACE participants. Golding (2004) explored gender segmentation in ACE including disadvantage associated with rural and remote geographic location in Australia. Johnson and Hinton (1986) noted nearly 20 years ago that with female participation rates approaching 80 percent, women ‘almost owned’ Australian adult education. Golding, Davies and Volkoff (2001, p.68) observed that ‘women clearly outnumber men as learners and workers in ACE. This phenomenon is historic and ongoing.’ In the state of Victoria in 2001, there were around two female ACE students for every male ACE student (Teese 2004).

Though this study is restricted to the learning needs of men who are in many senses missing from ACE, it is important to note that many rural women continue to experience social and economic disadvantage. As McGivney (2004) has shown, women tend to learn in response to a need to flexibly accommodate to changes more so than do men. Rural women are also more likely to experience and travel to unpaid and poorly paid casual and part-time work, less likely to access employer support for learning ‘on the job’ and to have more ongoing and conflicting family and work responsibilities. Golding and Rogers (2002) found that women in small rural towns tended to have a ‘learning edge’ in that they typically recognised - earlier than men - the value of learning and the penalties for not learning. Rural women in Australia have increasingly assumed many of the professional and community learning, networking and leadership roles previously held by men.

Women typically have access to more extensive learning networks by virtue of their multiple roles and responsibilities. As McGivney (2004, p.68) puts it, in general ‘men have fewer social ties and engage in less community activity than women’. Women in rural areas have been quicker to embrace ICT, more likely to keep learning formally and assume most key learning leadership roles in families (Golding and Rogers 2002). They also tend to have more positive recollections of learning at school. Finally and importantly, in the current study, women had ready access to a local learning organisation whose programs, services and pedagogies accommodated to their specific learning needs and preferences and were largely run, staffed and used by women.

Research method

Two main research questions underpinned the ten-town survey: Why do adult men tend not to access ACE? If they are not accessing ACE, where, what and how do they prefer to learn? It was based primarily on a survey that aimed to investigate the pattern of post-school male learning through ACE and four other community organizations (rural fire brigades, Australian rules football clubs, landcare and senior citizens organisations) in small rural towns. It sought to compare the learning-related characteristics of men who accessed learning through ACE, with men who learnt through their involvement as volunteers and participants in four community-based organisations. It sought to determine how all five organizations might be assisted or reconfigured to involve more men as learners.

Customised but otherwise identical surveys were distributed through the five different organisations to male participants in each of the ten towns. A total of up to 120 surveys were distributed in each town: up to 40 to current male learners in ACE and up to 20 each to members of landcare, football, rural fire service and senior citizens. Survey questions focussed upon: the perceived motivations and inhibitors of men’s learning; what men needed to learn; preferred learning styles and contexts; perceptions of the role of gender in organizations and in ACE learning contexts; ways in which learning through ACE organizations might be made more inclusive of men, and demographic information to provide a basis for inter-group comparisons. In effect, all organisations were considered to be ‘learning organisations’, in the sense that participation, and in some cases training or practice, was presumably associated learning through each organisation. The overall survey response rate was 45.9 per cent (N=399).

Findings and discussion

ACE learners comprised 34 percent of the respondent sample. Around 70 percent were members of the organisations in which they were surveyed. Two thirds regarded themselves as ‘active participants’ and one third held leadership roles in those organisations. Consistent with the assumption that men surveyed would be undertaking learning beyond ACE, around one half (47%) of all respondents attended ‘a formal learning program’ in the past year.

One important, overarching finding was that most men (90%) were keen to learn more and most (90%) recognised that the organisation in which they were surveyed helped them to learn. While most men (78%) recognised that other members of their organisation needed more opportunities to learn around one third (36%) acknowledged that learning was made more difficult though the organisation’s isolation. One in five were hamstrung by ‘difficulties with [their] skills that made it hard for [them] to learn’.

The most significantiii differences identified for the learning-related variables explored in this research related to the type of organisation in which men were participants. In effect, men surveyed learnt in significantly differently ways in the five different organisation types. The most unexpected finding is that learning as a consequence of participation within and through non-ACE service and leisure organisations was significantly more effective for men than learning through ACE. On most learning-related criteria, volunteer and leisure organisations fulfilled a number of critical, learning-related roles for men who were actively involved in them. Learning through regular and active community participation was more effective and apparently more closely matched to men’s learning preferences than learning through the local ACE provider – even for most men who already used ACE.

Fire and senior citizens organisations provided men with preferred learning opportunities and modes: through regular practice, by taking on responsibility through the organisation and one-on-one learning. Fire organisations also provided significantly more opportunities for accredited learning through the organisation than ACE provided for men to learn through special interest courses. However ACE providers facilitated significantly more opportunities to learn through the internet. For many men who needed internet skills, large gaps remained between the importance of internet skills and self-rating of those skills - which ACE did not currently meet.

Men involved in non-ACE organisations were significantly more involved as participants and in leadership roles than men in ACE. They were also more satisfied that their skill levels allowed them to take an active part in their organisation and significantly less likely than ACE users to regard opportunities to learn elsewhere in their communities as limited. Non-ACE organisation participants particularly valued the importance of skills to take responsible positions in community organisations as well as public speaking skills. Most men that did not use the local ACE provider nevertheless regarded it as a valuable resource: 90 percent would use it anytime if they really needed it. However half of football club and senior citizens participants and four out of ten fire organisation members did not know enough about the local ACE provider to use it – even though it was effectively the only public adult education provider in the town or district.

There is important new evidence from the survey of a clear link between knowledge about learning and community involvement. Men who had been involved in organisations for more than ten years were significantly more active and interested learners, but being older, had more limited ICT skills and held relatively negative attitudes towards the local ACE providers. Men who knew enough about the local ACE provider to use it were significantly more involved in their own organisation’s activities and more aware of the opportunities to learn through it. Men who did not know enough about the local ACE provider to use it were significantly more satisfied with their current skill levels and less likely to take part in learning - even through their own organisation. Men with a limited knowledge of the local ACE provider were around five times as likely as other men to feel uncomfortable about using ACE. They were also around twice as likely to be older, not know other people using ACE and regard it as a ‘women’s space’ - than men with a good working knowledge of ACE.

The position of the ACE provider in town appeared to affect men’s attitudes to the provider. Around twice as many men in towns where the provider was ‘shopfront’ did not feel comfortable going there as men where the ACE provider was not shopfront. This apparent reluctance to be seen going into the ACE provider is consistent with McGivney’s (2004, p.65) observation that pride stops many men participating in learning and that men tend to see learning ‘as something that children, retired people and women do’ (p.65).

Age was a significant intervening variable in terms of men’s attitudes to and involvement in learning generally, and to ACE in particular. Younger men had significantly higher ICT skills, were much less comfortable about going to ACE and were more likely to regard it as a ‘women’s space’. Younger men showed particular ignorance and indifference about what ACE potentially offered. Sixty percent of adult men age younger that 25 years did know enough about the local ACE provider to use it and over one half considered it did not currently offer anything they needed to learn. At the other extreme, older men over 55 years with more negative and limited experiences of formal learning and ICT were also less likely to access ACE.

The survey provides new, strong and disturbing evidence of the ongoing and debilitating effects of negative experiences at school on involvement in lifelong learning and community activity for men of all ages. Importantly the 74 percent of men who did not ‘really enjoy learning at school’ had significantly less positive attitudes to adult learning and were much less actively involved in community organisations. They participated significantly less frequently, were less interested in more learning, regarded public speaking skills less highly and rated their computer skills lower. Men who did not enjoy school learning were significantly less likely to be active or hold leadership roles in organisations or to have recently been involved in formal learning. In order for men to participate in ACE, courses would need to be shorter. Men’s general attitude that they were ‘too old’ as adults to be involved in learning - would also need to be addressed.