Taking Charge at Any Age: Learning and Wellbeing by Older Men through Community Organisations in Australia.
This paper examines and compares learning narratives associated with older men’s participation in three community organisations in an Australian rural setting: an adult and community education provider, an emergency service organization and an aged care facility. The interview data are from a larger Australian study of learning in community settings by older men (age 50+ years of age). The paper examines what factors influence older men’s learning and wellbeing through community organisations. It concludes that preferred learning for older men in community organisations is typically through group participation in practical situations for pragmatic purposes. Community organisations aside from education providers are shown to provide critically important opportunities for older men to actively redefine and recreate personal meanings and rapidly changing identities beyond those developed through paid work. Introduction Australia is experiencing an increasingly older population. One of the fastest growing cohorts is older men of working age who are not participating in the paid workforce or who are retired from paid work. These men are less likely than other adults to engage in formal learning, including through adult and community education (ACE) organisations. Such men are also vulnerable as they age to social isolation and problems with health and wellbeing. Education and training discourses typically presuppose that adult education participants are either younger individuals preparing for paid work, or pursuing learning ‘out of interest’ through ACE providers. This research looks specifically and deliberately at older men’s learning through community involvement in two organization types beyond ACE: fire and emergency services and an
BOTTOM-UP STRATEGIES FOR COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT AND INFORMAL LEARNING: TARGETING MEN AGED 60 YEARS OR MORE
The article presents findings from a large-scale qualitative research study conducted as part of a three-year Erasmus+ project entitled Old Guys Say Yes to Community, which included partners from Slovenia, Portugal, Poland and Estonia. The project explored how inactive ageing affects the quality of life, health and well-being of men aged 60 years or more, and how (self-)exclusion from the community can lead to social and psychological ‘death’. The article highlights four interconnected themes which are inadequately, insufficiently, or simply not addressed by national institutions and often also the non-governmental sector in the researched countries. The themes – the pluralisation of transitions to retirement and ageing; absent bodies and invisible lives; hegemonic masculinity and gendered experiences; and community-based learning, action and spaces – are supported by well-defined issues and obstacles preventing men from integrating into the community and are completed with suggestions and recommendations to implement much-needed changes. In addition to these four themes, the article touches upon a series of subtopics and questions that should be addressed by further scientific research in the observed countries.
A LITERATURE REIEW OF TARGET COSTING IN SSCI AND SCI&SCI-EXPANDED INDEXES
Target costing as a cost management and profit planning system is used by many competitive firms since 1970s. Although the concept is simple, the implementation needs an extensive collaboration inside and outside of the organization. In contrast, many organization managers think that target costing is just related with accounting and finance staff. Our study aims to review the literature of this important concept; target costing by examining 41 English articles published in SSCI and SCI&SCI-Expanded between 1985-2008. The study aims to briefly explain the content of each article to show the reader what has accomplished so far.