Combining Methodologies to Study Learning in the Life Course: Insights from the Learning Lives Proje

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Combining Methodologies to Study Learning in the
Life Course Insights from the Learning Lives
Project

• Gert Biesta, Flora Macleod, Paul Lambe and
  Michael Tedder
• SELL Research Seminar, 8 May 2007
• http//www.education.ex.ac.uk/pages.php?id137

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LEARNING LIVES LEARNING, IDENTITY AND AGENCY IN
THE LIFE COURSE

• a 3 year longitudinal study into the learning
  biographies of adults (25)
• ESRCs Teaching and Learning Research Programme,
  Phase III
• Exeter, Stirling, Leeds and Brighton

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BACKGROUND

• from adult education to lifelong learning
• growing interest in lifelong learning and
  actual rise of informal and non-formal learning
  (Field silent explosion)
• policy focus (UK, EU) on the economic function of
  lifelong learning learning for earning, adult
  basic skills
• but there are other functions of lifelong
  learning e.g., personal and civic
• THE LEARNING LIVES PROJECT
• investigation into what learning means and
  does
• in the lives of adults

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KEY CONCEPTS

• learning identity agency lifecourse
• - how identity (including learner identity) and
  agency (ability to give direction to ones life)
  impact on learning dispositions, practices and
  achievements
• how learning impacts on identity (sense of self)
  and sense of agency and actual agency
• against the background of unfolding lives
  transitions and transformations
• against the background of societal change

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KEY CONCEPTS (CONTINUED)

• unit of analysis the learning biography
• learning one of the ways in which people respond
  to events in their lives (from adaptive and
  reproductive to generative and creative)
• related to transitions, turning points and
  routines

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3 METHODOLOGICAL CHALLENGES

• How to investigate learning in context?
• How to investigate the temporality of learning?
• - How to investigate the temporality of
  learning contexts?

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DESIGN

• life-history retrospective
• and
• life-course real time
• interpretative repeated life history interviews
  with 125-150 adults (25 and older) over a period
  of about 3 years
• Leeds Hodkinson, Hodkinson, Hawthorne Ford
• Exeter Biesta Tedder
• Stirling Field, Malcolm Lynch
• Brighton Goodson Adair
• quantitative analysis of British Household Panel
  Survey (1991-)
• Macleod Lambe

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4 THEMATIC FOCI

• older learners (Leeds)
• (un)employment (Stirling)
• family and community (Exeter)
• migration (Brighton)

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THEORETICAL and METHODOLOGICAL CONTRIBUTIONS

• learning (biographical learning narrative
  learning)
• identity (including narrative identity)
• agency (an ecological understanding)
• life course (context generation)
• combination of methods and methodologies in a
• large scale longitudinal project

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WEBSITE

• www.learninglives.org
• working papers, presentations, publications
• end date 31st January 2008

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Table 1 AGE Cohorts
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Table 2 Conditional Probabilities for Latent
Life Paths
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Pathway at age 20 mediated through dichotomous
variable left school at 16/did not leave at 16
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(No Transcript)
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Questions about Maries decision-making

• How can we understand the trajectory of Maries
  life?
• How are we to understand decisions she took
  concerning the five social roles in life -
  marriage, parenthood, formal education, work,
  moving geographically that weve used to
  construct the latent pathways?
• Were Maries decisions simply reactions to
  circumstances? If so what were those
  circumstances?
• How did her subjective views of the world
  influence her decisions?
• What was the interplay between how she
  experienced things and external circumstances?

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Questions about Maries learning

• What consequences did Maries decisions have for
  her learning?
• Given that she can be located on a particular
  pathway, how has it restricted or enhanced the
  opportunities she has experienced and is
  experiencing for learning?

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Marriage and Parenthood

• He was already winding down a bit really. The
  club had disbanded and it was sort of a strange
  transition really because it was almost like
  mourning. You know, it was something that hed
  done for thirty years and something that Id done
  for a good ten, and, and it was strange. All of a
  sudden we didnt have that anymore. now my
  husbands into fishing instead of motorbikes.
  laughs So its quite a little bit of a
  life-change really, you know, from, from living
  in the pub basically to, you know, wanting the
  best for our children and looking after our
  house. (Interview 1, December 2004)

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In Formal Education

• My little girls, you know, learning and
  spreading her wings and I just want to make sure
  shes got it right and Ive got it right for her,
  you know. I dont want her to be the only kid
  that ain't got what everyone elses supposed to
  have that day or whatever, you know. I do try
  really hard to make sure its alright. Its
  important. (Interview 1, December 2004)
• I was really chuffed that I actually, sort of,
  knew any of it its not sort of to go onto to
  anything else particularly at the moment. But
  its just to know that I can do it really. For
  just of me to know that I can pass that test, a
  math test. (Interview 2, May 2005)

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Informal learning

• Re-cycling
• skip rat someone who goes to the recycling
  centre with a boot load of stuff and comes back
  with even more
• dump buddy - someone who helps you with repairs
  to the things you want to recycle. (Interview 5,
  June 2006)
• Parenting
• consultations with health visitor service and
  Sure Start in addition to communication with
  networks of friends and relatives
• Committee membership
• organisational procedures and legal matters

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Employment 1

• I used to go out on the roads and help them do
  work out on the roads as well. This is where I
  met my husband while I was in the ditch. I was in
  a ditch with a whacker at the time. Yeh, one of
  these great big, you know, sewing machine feet
  and I seen him go past on a motorbike and he was
  on the back with somebody that I knew he said
  Whos that, that you just waved to, that bird in
  the ditch? (laughs) Said Thats Marie, that
  is, and that was it and he, he pursued me after
  that. (Interview 1, December 2004)

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Employment 2

• it is seriously frustrating that you have got to
  look, ask, go from phone call to phone call to
  phone call, person to person, to actually find
  out what exactly, you know, help can I get with.
  Cos I mean I havent got the money to, to go and,
  you know, train myself up for this and for
  thatits all really costly. And somebody
  somewhere makes an awful lot of money, you know,
  these private sectors now, for, you know, all
  these tickets and these licences that everyone
  has got to have. (Interview 6, September 2006)

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Agency

• I feel so much better in control. I know where my
  moneys coming from, I know what money Ive got
  to deal with. I know, I know its just me Ive
  got to worry about and, you know, for me kids
  yea, you know, and I havent got to look after a,
  a grown man. (Interview 7, February 2007)

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CONCLUDING REMARKS

• Understanding how probabilistic pathways are
  biographically achieved (both to understand the
  norm and the exception)
• Methodologically this requires an iterative
  relationship between biography and pathway (in
  both case to select relevant aspects)
• The biographical perspective can show what
  learning means and does in the life of Marie Tuck
  (formal, informal, biographical always
  retrospective) and how this is linked to identity
  and the achievement of agency