Shoulder to Shoulder? Masculinities and Informal Learning in Later Life

Abstract

Although Portuguese researchers are increasingly interested in studying ageing processes, adult education has not been giving older citizen's learning the attention it deserves. At the same time, while discourse on informal learning has been present for a long time, not many investigations have chosen it as a central theme. During the OMAL project, we wanted to first have an exploratory approach to older men's learning in the community which, at a certain point, needs a theoretical focus on masculinities. In this article, we present the results of two case studies related to fishing. Our findings point to some interesting comments both on the importance of informal learning and of symbolic spaces in the community, as well as promising results on the issue of masculinities. Our provisional conclusions allow us to redirect our future investigational efforts.

Keywords

• adult education
• informal learning
• community
• men's learning
• older adults