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This paper proposes a new theory of Conditional Social Equality (CSE) which in some ways challenges the theory of cumulative advantage/disadvantage (CAD), which postulates that inequalities and social divisions necessarily increase over time. Using evidence from informal learning groups in Men's Sheds in three countries, we conclude that some social divisions between homosocial groups, in this case groups of older men, may actually decrease -- but only under certain conditions. Male-gendered learning groups that were relatively homogeneous by age helped erase class divisions and softened gender stereotypes. Our theory of conditional social equality (CSE) predicts the following: (1) in-group homogeneity can enable the acceptance of some aspects of heterogeneity; (2) some other aspects of in-group heterogeneity may not be tolerated, thus maintaining in-group cohesion; and (3) in-group homogeneity and boundary setting towards out-groups may be prerequisites for the acceptance of (some) aspects of in-group heterogeneity. All of this has important implications for adult learning in both heterogeneous and homogenous groups.

This specially themed ""Getting of Wisdom," Learning in Later Life" Edition of the "Australian Journal of Adult Learning" ("AJAL") is not so much concerned with the issue of ageing itself, but more about quality of life regardless of age. It is about taking, but also giving back as best as possible at any age. This special issue is a result of the one week "The Getting of Wisdom Exchange", a collaboration between around 100 adult education practitioners and researchers from ten countries from Australia, New Zealand, Asia and Europe. In this issue, papers are presented from Sweden, Ireland, Aotearoa/New Zealand, Australia, Slovenia, Poland, Germany, Portugal and the United Kingdom. Papers cover different topics and open questions about various issues in older people's learning.

This paper reflects on the history of adult and community education (ACE) in Aotearoa New Zealand with special reference to older people's learning. The paper adopts a critical framework and draws on both primary and secondary sources. Key economic, political, social, demographic and cultural forces are discussed along with the huge growth in tertiary education, the increasing pressures on people to continue their education in later life, and the impact of social movements on this expansion. This growth in tertiary education has not been paralleled by a comparable growth of ACE, and I argue that the history of ACE is in fact more complex and subtle, with many different stories being told. I then discuss the history of older adults' learning and report briefly on some ACE programmes which have emerged over the years and some trends in government policy with special reference to the New Zealand Positive Ageing Strategy and its implications for older people's learning. In the light of the positive ageing rhetoric I also raise questions about the very limited government investment in ACE generally and in particular in older people's learning.

This paper discusses the findings of a research study that gathered and analyzed recruitment and retention strategies employed by 50 teacher education programs (TEPs) in Canada, the United States, New Zealand, and Australia to increase the number of Indigenous teachers. It discusses several recruitment and retention strategies that were found to be successful in this regard, highlighting the importance of facilitating access, eliminating financial barriers, and offering Indigenous-centric programs.

In this paper, I advocate that culture matters in music education and should be a measure we consider when we assess the quality of music-making in the community. Community arts education can address a multitude of social issues that impact marginalized communities if viewed through an appropriate lens. I propose historical trauma as an appropriate lens for a (post)colonial context. It provides a framework for disrupting music education practices in university music programs and reconsidering the competencies that need to be emphasized when training conservatory educated performers to be community music facilitators. This text is a story, written in the style of a genealogical narrative (whakapapa korero). It moves through a specific body of experiences, interconnected stories, contexts and emotions, a process identified by indigenous social work researchers as a culturally appropriate healing intervention for indigenous communities. If you are looking for a bullet-pointed exposition of suitable procedures to employ in your work, you are missing the point. In the past we indigenous academics have made it very easy for other academics and researchers to access our knowledge, but to appreciate the new knowing offered in this text you will have to work a little harder. You will need to shift your cultural paradigm and any academic bias to a world where you are not given direct answers, but rather you are encouraged to listen (and with the audio examples provided I mean that literally), reflect, become aware of your physical reactions, open yourself to the spiritual dimension and consider how these words and sounds may impact your future thinking. Most importantly, I hope this chapter will allow you to understand and share the un-mourned grief of the indigenous people in your (s)p(l)ace. [The month shown on the PDF (June) is incorrect. The correct month is July.]

This paper explores recent changes in tertiary education policy in New Zealand, which are designed to address legitimation deficits. By offering an analysis of the making, and the subsequent unmaking, of quasi-markets in tertiary education, this paper attempts to describe how the state dealt with legitimation deficits resulting from providers' of tertiary education use of the adult and community education funding category to increase their revenues. In providing this description, the paper helps to provide a way of understanding how the state in New Zealand has responded to legitimation deficits by introducing a new regime of governance. The paper concludes by arguing that, in terms of its treatment of category 5.1 funding, this regime is supportive of neo-conservative goals. (Contains 1 note.)

Within New Zealand, Adult and Community Education providers are facing radical reductions in government support. Providers are reacting in different ways with many being forced to withdraw from offering non-credit education at affordable rates. This paper explores the likely consequences, in terms of changes in learner profile, of efforts to maintain the viability of programs through increased fees. The research explores strategies for maintaining student numbers and access despite substantial fee increases. The work is based on a survey of over 550 university community education learners and uses approaches derived from consumer decision-making research. The results suggest that fee increases will contribute to a shift towards community education being an activity limited to the better off but that measures are available that will go some way to safeguard learner numbers and access. (Contains 6 tables.)

This paper examines the process by which all post-compulsory education in New Zealand has become integrated under one administrative structure, the Tertiary Education Commission (TEC), with the intention of developing a single coordinated system of tertiary education. In particular, adult and community education (ACE), the least formal and organised sector, is required to develop programmes that align with an externally conceived set of priorities, which themselves arise from the Tertiary Education Strategies. Using Popper's concepts of "holistic" versus "piecemeal" change, it is argued that such large-scale change is potentially dangerous as there are likely to be unintended, damaging consequences of such policies; consequences which are difficult to fix in modern, complex societies. In particular, ACE which is built on an insider, community-focus ethos, able itself to identify and respond to community-learning opportunities, is likely to be changed fundamentally so that the very characteristics that have made ACE effective in the past will be lost in the process. (Contains 7 notes.)

The benefits of community environmental education outlined in environmental education literature are supported by the findings and implications of a research study undertaken in New Zealand. Evidence from a two-case case study suggests that environmental programmes guided by the key principles and practices of community environmental education, that is, public participation, environmental adult education and environmental communication, can produce effective environmental outcomes. Indeed, these cases indicate that the principles and practices of public participation provide a catalyst for genuine collaborative efforts between different organisations and local communities. Results also indicated that environmental adult education strategies can empower community members to critically evaluate local environmental issues, which in turn resulted in a commitment to improving the local environment. I thus argue in this paper that the principles and practices of community environmental education can provide benchmarks for cross-sectoral collaboration and assist communities in reaching environmental solutions.

Drawing on social and political theory, this article argues that the retention and promotion of specific group-based rights--in this case, indigenous language and education rights--need not result in social and linguistic closure. Principles underlying such rights are illustrated by an extended analysis of recent Maori language-immersion initiatives in Aotearoa/New Zealand. (Author/VWL)

This paper explores recent changes in tertiary education policy in New Zealand, which are designed to address legitimation deficits. By offering an analysis of the making, and the subsequent unmaking, of quasi-markets in tertiary education, this paper attempts to describe how the state dealt with legitimation deficits resulting from providers' of tertiary education use of the adult and community education funding category to increase their revenues. In providing this description, the paper helps to provide a way of understanding how the state in New Zealand has responded to legitimation deficits by introducing a new regime of governance. The paper concludes by arguing that, in terms of its treatment of category 5.1 funding, this regime is supportive of neo-conservative goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Collective community education co-designed with the Māori (Indigenous people of Aotearoa (New Zealand) and Pasifika (Pacific Islander peoples living in Australia) communities through participatory community engagement, Indigenous methods and cultural knowledge are vital for development and implementation of diabetes community forums. A community-based participatory action research was co-designed with three Pasifika diabetes community forums in partnership with Māori and Pasifika communities, a university and government health organisations in Southeast Queensland. The forums provided a culturally safe space for the communities to collectively engage in diabetes education, health checks and cultural knowledge sharing. The outcomes of these forums led to co-development of a Pasifika Women's Diabetes Wellness Program aimed at promoting diabetes prevention and management for the Māori and Pasifika diaspora in Australia and internationally. Co-designed community forums have the potential to address health equity through inclusion of communities and key stakeholders in a collaborative agenda, empowering communities to improve health outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses how changing higher education policies and perspectives are impacting on university continuing education in Aotearoa New Zealand, particularly in the light of its decline in England. It describes the context of university continuing education in New Zealand and the strategic and pragmatic ways in which continuing education departments have responded to the challenges of recent years. With the continued encroachment of commodification and credentialism in education, and with the recent election of a rightward leaning government, the paper assesses the prospects for New Zealand's university continuing education departments in neoliberal times. It concludes that university continuing education is as vulnerable as the wider adult and community education sector to the neoliberal shift and argues for the need for adult educators and academics to unite in the struggle for the principles of radical adult education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the process by which all post-compulsory education in New Zealand has become integrated under one administrative structure, the Tertiary Education Commission (TEC), with the intention of developing a single coordinated system of tertiary education. In particular, adult and community education (ACE), the least formal and organised sector, is required to develop programmes that align with an externally conceived set of priorities, which themselves arise from the Tertiary Education Strategies. Using Popper's concepts of 'holistic' versus 'piecemeal' change, it is argued that such large-scale change is potentially dangerous as there are likely to be unintended, damaging consequences of such policies; consequences which are difficult to fix in modern, complex societies. In particular, ACE which is built on an insider, community-focus ethos, able itself to identify and respond to community-learning opportunities, is likely to be changed fundamentally so that the very characteristics that have made ACE effective in the past will be lost in the process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The benefits of community environmental education outlined in environmental education literature are supported by the findings and implications of a research study undertaken in New Zealand. Evidence from a two-case case study suggests that environmental programmes guided by the key principles and practices of community environmental education, that is, public participation, environmental adult education and environmental communication, can produce effective environmental outcomes. Indeed, these cases indicate that the principles and practices of public participation provide a catalyst for genuine collaborative efforts between different organisations and local communities. Results also indicated that environmental adult education strategies can empower community members to critically evaluate local environmental issues, which in turn resulted in a commitment to improving the local environment. I thus argue in this paper that the principles and practices of community environmental education can provide benchmarks for cross-sectoral collaboration and assist communities in reaching environmental solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on a collaborative research project, utilising a naturalistic inquiry methodology (Lincoln and Guba 1985), that sought to explore the professional development needs of adult and community education (ACE) practitioners in Aotearoa/New Zealand. The collaboration was three-way - between the government agency responsible for the tertiary education sector, the Tertiary Education Commission (TEC), a group of university-based researchers, and a range of community-based ACE practitioners. This paper explores the challenges and opportunities of researching alongside a diverse range of ACE practitioners in the context of policy change in that sector. It also discusses some of the issues raised for researchers undertaking government-funded research whilst also seeking to reflect the views and aspirations of a community sector which may be critical of a government department's policy or practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From 1984 until 1999, New Zealand's economic 'reforms' were a model for others, particularly Canadians. At the centre of this model was lifelong learning which bore little relationship to the social democratic ethos embedded in Faure Report conceptions of lifelong education. In New Zealand, lifelong learning slept in the same bed as the 'marketization' of education. The radical excesses of the New Zealand Experiment might have ended with the December, 1999 election of a Labour/Alliance government. This paper traces the genesis of the post-1984 brand of lifelong learning in New Zealand, identifies consequences for universities and shows how educational policy needs to go backwards and forwards at the same time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The vibrancy of civil society is closely linked to the expressed values of democracy: social inclusion and the freedom to f lourish. Having the opportunity to access ongoing adult education strengthens an educated citizenship, which is a central feature of a robust democracy. Our concerns are with the government's decision to reduce or eliminate ongoing funding for Adult and Community Education (ACE). Drawing on the emancipatory ideals of critical theorists, we examine the potential impact such actions may have on the robustness of a 'just' society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the ways in which the language of ‘networking', ‘communities of practice’ and ‘learning in communities’ has been used to serve government policy priorities in the adult and community education (ACE) sector in Aotearoa New Zealand. The paper draws on research which explored the role of regional networks in meeting ACE practitioners' professional development needs. It reveals some of the problems arising from the attempt to impose an unclearly articulated ‘communities of practice’ approach to regional organization in the sector. These include lack of clarity about the role of networks whose parameters were imposed by government and the difficulty of building inclusivity and partnership into the process of network development, particularly in the context of the Treaty of Waitangi,1 which governs relationships between Pakeha (those of European settler origin) and Māori tangata whenua (the indigenous population). The paper discusses the ways in which theoretical concepts may be bent to meet contradictory agendas and suggests a more radical community development approach to networking which might be adopted in defence of ACE as it comes under attack from a newly elected government with a revised set of priorities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Globally, the Asia-Pacific region has been one of the more dynamic regions for people movement in recent years and evidence of this in contemporary New Zealand society abounds. This paper focuses on community education programmes that prevent the incidence of drowning among new settlers in an aquatically oriented island nation through water safety education. National and regional policy documents that set the framework for targeted community water safety education are discussed in relation to interventions put in place in the culturally and linguistically metropolitan region of greater Auckland. Three case studies of new settler water safety initiatives and evaluations of their impact are presented. They include: the West Coast Rock Fishing Safety Project, the New Zealand Olympic Committee (NZOC) Refugee Youth Water Safety Programme, and the Auckland Muslim Women's Swimming Project. Gaps in the current provision of community education water safety programmes are identified and ways to address shortcoming are recommended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within New Zealand, Adult and Community Education (ACE) providers are facing reduced financial support from government. If they wish to continue to provide short courses to their communities, providers may have to increase course fees in an effort to cover costs. This paper explores alternative pricing strategies and describes how demand for services may be affected by a shift from subsidised tofu!! fee courses. A method for assessing the likely impact of fee increases is presented and the results of a survey of over 300 university community education participants are described. The data suggest that enrolments are unlikely to remain at viable levels if course fees are increased over the short term to the levels required to cover costs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The summer learning effect has been identified as a major barrier in creating equitable outcomes in the United States, especially in reading and mathematics. Less is known about the effect in other education systems and subject domains. This research draws on a large sample (N = 4390) to examine the summer learning effect in the comparatively under-researched domain of writing in New Zealand. Results indicate a considerable loss among students despite the relatively short summer break. The drop is substantially larger than the overall summer drop found previously across subjects, and for reading and mathematics specifically. Students from minority ethnic groups showed the greatest drops. Although indigenous students progressed at an equivalent rate than their European peers, the summer drop meant that the gap evident at the beginning of the academic year had widened by the beginning of the next year. At the school level, lower-income schools, which were over-represented by ethnic minority students, were also associated with a greater summer drop even after accounting for ethnicity. The growing inequities created by the effect underscore the importance of addressing this issue. Our findings point to the significance of supporting students' literacy developments in and outside of school. They call for greater policy attention that would see an examination of the financial and educational resourcing to support schools and families, but also of the access and resourcing of communities in regard to education, libraries and community services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Changes in tertiary education policy in Aotearoa New Zealand in the last decade have impacted on adult and community education (ACE). Marginalized and understood as non-formal education at the turn of the century, ACE is now part of the ‘tertiary landscape’. It is explicitly steered by education policy, its role severely narrowed, its emphasis shifted from empowerment, equity, active citizenship to preparation for employment and skills for work. This article explores the policy developments which have led to the changes and analyses possible links between the policies and three neoliberal suppositions: free market economics, the role of the state and homo economicus. It concludes that policies have been influenced by a neoliberal hegemony under both Centre-left Labour-led and Centre-right National-led governments, and that neoliberalism is likely to remain dominant into the future. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]