I feel different Catarina Doutor; Natália Alves
European journal for research on the education and learning of adults,
02/2024, Volume:
15, Issue:
1
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Accessing higher education is a biographical learning experience for all students, which can promote transformations in individuals’ identities. This article aims to investigate the implications of ...biographical learning experiences on the students’ identities. We will explore African students’ biographical learning experiences in Portuguese higher education and how they shaped their identities. Biographical learning and identity theoretical perspectives were adopted. This is a qualitative study that used biographical interviews with 22 African students enrolling at Portuguese higher education. The content analysis carried out has been organized into 2 themes: biographical learning experiences and identity transformations. The results of the study show that African students gained new knowledge and skills and became more independent and autonomous. They develop their self-confidence and open-mindedness through a new way of seeing the world. Thus, African students’ experiences in higher education contributed to the formation and transformation of their identity.
I feel different Doutor, Catarina; Alves, Natália
European journal for research on the education and learning of adults,
02/2024, Volume:
15, Issue:
1
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Accessing higher education is a biographical learning experience for all students, which can promote transformations in individuals’ identities. This article aims to investigate the implications of ...biographical learning experiences on the students’ identities. We will explore African students’ biographical learning experiences in Portuguese higher education and how they shaped their identities. Biographical learning and identity theoretical perspectives were adopted. This is a qualitative study that used biographical interviews with 22 African students enrolling at Portuguese higher education. The content analysis carried out has been organized into 2 themes: biographical learning experiences and identity transformations. The results of the study show that African students gained new knowledge and skills and became more independent and autonomous. They develop their self-confidence and open-mindedness through a new way of seeing the world. Thus, African students’ experiences in higher education contributed to the formation and transformation of their identity.
This paper is a contribution to understanding the relationship between agency and learning in the lifecourse. The contribution is mainly of a theoretical and a conceptual nature in that a particular ...notion of agency is used that enables agency to be conceived as something that is achieved, rather than possessed, through the active engagement of individuals with aspects of their contexts-for-action. We refer to this as an ecological understanding of agency. On the part of the actor, such engagements are characterised by particular configurations of routine, purpose and judgement. The argument is made that learning about the particular composition of one's agentic orientations and how they play out in one's life can play an important role in the achievement of agency, and that life-narratives, stories about one's life, can be an important vehicle for such learning. We explore the potential of this approach through a discussion of aspects of the learning (auto-) biographies of two participants in the Learning Lives project, a three-year longitudinal study of learning in the lifecourse. The paper concludes with a discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of the approach and an indication of questions for further research.
Full text
Available for:
BFBNIB, DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Resumo A ideia de que a experiência de vida pode constituir uma fonte de aprendizagem e de desenvolvimento não é, de todo, nova. Aliás, as experiências de vida quando são pensadas e refletidas ...adquirem uma dimensão formativa. No entanto, a experiência é, por si só, um conceito impreciso e que comporta um conjunto diversificado de significados. Nesse contexto, qual a relação entre experiência e aprendizagem? Acresce a essa questão, outras consideradas, de igual modo, importantes, tais como: Qual o papel formativo das experiências? E qual o papel da reflexão? Essas são algumas das questões que tentaremos responder. O presente artigo, de natureza teórica, procura refletir sobre os conceitos de aprendizagem e/ou formação experiencial e aprendizagem biográfica no quadro teórico-conceptual da educação e formação de adultos. A partir das principais perspectivas teóricas apresentadas e discutidas, os três conceitos assumem um sentido idêntico referente ao papel ativo do indivíduo, assim como à sua capacidade de refletir e, posteriormente, de atribuir sentidos e/ou significados às experiências vivenciadas. Acreditamos que a relevância desses conceitos teóricos se prende, precisamente, com a possibilidade de analisar os múltiplos significados e sentidos que os indivíduos atribuem quer às experiências, quer às aprendizagens adquiridas ao longo das suas vidas.
Abstract The idea that life experience can be a source of learning and development is not at all new. In fact, life experiences when they are thought and reflected upon acquired a formative dimension. However, experience is, in itself, an imprecise concept and it holds a diverse set of meanings. In this context, what is the relationship between experience and learning? In addition to this question, there are others considered equally important such as: what is the formative role of experiences? And what is the role of reflection? These are some of the questions that we will try to answer. This article of theoretical nature seeks to reflect on the concepts of experiential learning and/or training and biographical learning in the theoretical-conceptual framework of adult education and training. From the main theoretical perspectives presented and discussed, the three concepts take on an identical meaning concerning the active role of the individual, as well as their capacity to reflect and, subsequently, to attribute senses and/or meanings to the experiences lived. We believe that the relevance of these theoretical concepts is precisely related to the possibility to analyse the multiple meanings and senses that individuals attribute both to the experiences and to the learnings acquired throughout their lives.
The article contains deliberations on the subject of adult learning as a result of breaking points in people’s lives. It is based on Fritz Schütze and Gerhard Riemann’s concept of the trajectory, ...trying to show the educational potential of critical life events. The paper constitutes an illustration about learning and biography. The analysis concerns an individual who experienced domestic violence, was separated from her family of origin by being placed in a care and educational institution, whose life was additionally complicated by teenage pregnancy and motherhood. The analysis of the narrative makes it possible to see two dimensions of the relationship between learning and biography – learning from the experiences we face during life and biographical learning (or learning from a biography).
This article develops an agentic approach to activist learning and analyzes the interplay between agency and learning. The agentic approach derives from Alheit’s concept of biographical learning and ...Emirbayer and Mische’s concept of agency. The article builds on the case study of an activist’s narrative to show that the development of agency is not a linear process, and that no single unilateral relation was discernible between learning and agency. The interrelations between agency and learning are analyzed in the context of temporality, causation, and agentic dimensions. The article suggests a cycle of learning, action, and agency in activism as a framework for the study of activists learning.
Full text
Available for:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, OILJ, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
The general aim of this paper is to present insights from a Polish case study on the learning experiences of Polish older men. The research data was collected by means of ‘guided’, semi-structured ...interviews. This paper presents two well-educated older men’s life stories from two different local communities in Poland and the analyses of their life experiences in the context of masculinities and ageing using a biographical learning approach. The analyses of the two biographical narratives have shown the diversity in the life histories of older men, but also similar struggles and challenges. They have illustrated how older men cannot simply be reduced to their experience of ageing, but that they also carry some continuously (re)negotiated struggles with masculinity, weaving new and rich threads for learning that is lifelong and life-wide.
Denne artikel præsenterer arbejdet med at sammentænke inspirationer hentet fra det livshistoriske interview, teorier om biografisk læring og institutionel etnografi. Fra det afsæt indkredses ...biografisk arbejdsviden som et hjælpebegreb til at integrere livshistoriske perspektiver i udformningen af institutionelle etnografier. Det illustreres, hvordan den biografiske arbejdsviden gør det muligt at arbejde med et situeret historisk ståsted i udforskningen af koblinger mellem subjektive erfaringer, institutionelle aktiviteter og styringsrelationer.
Migration is an important life transition that creates opportunities for both learning and the (re)construction of identity. In this article, we discuss the migration experiences of great aunt Neža ...Gerkšič, a.k.a. Agnes Lacroix, as a field of learning being interpreted through the theory of biographical learning. Biographical learning is treated as a process occurring in everyday life and the (re)construction of identity, knowledge, skills, attitudes, and values. The study, following the phenomenological paradigm of qualitative research, was developed on the basis of an autobiographical record that includes the entire course of Neža's life and all her migrations. By analyzing the autobiographical record, we show how, in the first half of the twentieth century, this active subject of migration acquired knowledge and (re)constructed her identity through various strategies.
Full text
Available for:
NUK, OILJ, SAZU, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
This paper explores learning trajectories in becoming 'rural women' in Sweden, by using a biographical and socially-situated learning perspective. The data is based on in-depth biographical ...interviews with three young women who moved between rural and urban areas, and finally decided to return to a rural area. The findings show three learning phases: the mythical, the questioning and the self-positioning phase. Furthermore, the paper identifies four types of learning spaces of urban and rural areas: an imagined, a career-related, a cultural-emotional and a biographical learning space. The paper offers valuable insights about everyday life learning and identity development in young adulthood, and how stereotypes of rural areas negatively impact on young adults' views of themselves and their life choices.Keywords: young female, rural/urban dived, countryside returnees, learning space and trajectories, biographical learning.
Full text
Available for:
BFBNIB, NUK, PILJ, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
PDF
