From invisibility to inclusion: Opening the doors for older men at the University of the Third Age in Malta

ABSTRACT

Older men are highly under-represented in late-life learning programmes. In reaction, the University of the Third Age in Malta (U3A) planned and implemented an ‘Older Men Learning in the Community’ project that (i) employed advertising strategies targeting specifically older men; (ii) organized preliminary meetings with older men to elicit ‘generative themes’ for possible subject content; and (iii), prompted facilitators to employ novel teaching styles such as peer and situated learning approaches. Data demonstrated that older men were highly inclined to participate in learning activities that intrigued their interest, were deemed practical to their lives, and resonated with their occupational careers and generational habitus. Moreover, the U3A presented older men with a possibility to address perceived challenges to their masculinity following their retirement from work and physical aging. However, the study also emphasized that U3As must not let such an interest on older men serve to reinforce patriarchal and masculine hegemony. Rather than a late-life learning programme be designed to address older men’s inclinations to learn about subjects that are not of interest to older women, it is certainly also valuable for future learning projects to organize learning programmes that enable older men to overcome misogynistic notions.

KEYWORDS:

• Older adult learning
• older men
• University of the Third Age
• gender
• Malta

Acknowledgments

I sincerely thank the two anonymous reviewers whose comments and suggestions helped to substantially improve and clarify this paper.