Abstract

In aging societies, older adults often volunteer, but little is known about how they become community learning facilitators. This article examines this process in Nonthaburi Municipality, Thailand, using participatory action research (PAR) over three cycles. The wider project included 110 participants from three age groups across five subdistricts; this article focuses on the developmental paths of older adults in community-based and public learning activities. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews, focus groups, field notes, and participant reflections during the PAR process.

The findings show that older adult facilitators did not emerge solely from formal training. Instead, they developed through a four-stage participatory becoming framework. First, participants entered as tentative helpers or attendees, often uncertain of their capacity to lead or teach others. Next, through repeated involvement in dialogue, intergenerational collaboration, situated action, and collective reflection, they began to reinterpret their abilities, gain confidence through small successes, and adopt more active roles in organizing, teaching, and initiating learning activities in their communities. Facilitative roles became most visible in the fourth stage, when older adults moved beyond participation to become hosts, volunteer teachers, co-organizers, and initiators of local learning spaces. However, not all participants progressed through these stages in the same way or at the same pace; some remained more tentative. This suggests that role development depended on sustained participation, relational support, and opportunities for public enactment.

This article argues that the development of older adult learning facilitators is better understood as a participatory process of becoming than as an outcome of training transfer. Empirically, it provides a four-stage framework that explains how facilitative roles emerged across PAR cycles in an aging urban community. Practically, it suggests that community learning initiatives should invest less in one-off instruction and more in dialogic, field-based, and intergenerational processes through which facilitative capacity can be enacted and recognized in real settings.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.