Inaugural Professorial Lecture Series 2009

Waikato University Inaugural Professorial Lecture - Professor Brian Findsen - Pathways Collage
"It's never too late to learn: What a Scottish study of older adults in formal education can tell us"

There is a common belief that education should be mainly directed at young people to equip them for life, including work. While it is recognised that governments have a responsibility to fund educational opportunities for school leavers, it is arguably just as important that lifelong learning opportunities for citizens across the lifespan be similarly provided, particularly in times of rapid social change.

Adult learners from the dominant white middle class are usually adept at sustaining their own learning (setting learning goals and strategies to achieve self-imposed outcomes), exemplified by the success of the University of the Third Age movement, especially in Commonwealth countries, and of Institutes for Learning in Retirement (ILRs) in North America. Far less is known about older working class people with respect to their learning aspirations and outcomes.

Professor findsen's lecture, primarily based on an empirical longitudinal study of people over 50 years of age and their educational journeys in the West of Scotland, investigates the motivations of working class people in later life to enter formal study, their actual learning experiences within Further and Higher Education and the benefits for themselves and communities. These findings have considerable transferability to the Aotearoa New Zealand context.

Opus Bar opens at 5.30pm

Event listed by Beam

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