ERC Keynote: Liselott Aarsand

Today, the idea of conceptualizing learning as lifelong and life-wide seemingly dominates the scene: it is expected, proffered, and debated. However, across multiple sites, learning has typically been associated with formal education, curriculum, and schooling. While these connections hold significant value, such a focus tends to overlook the learning mechanisms and potentials embedded in the mundane practices in which people engage daily. Thus, following the well-established insight that learning is not confined to formal education but can take place in all walks of life, it appears important to advocate for a more open and inclusive approach. Utilizing analytical tools from discourse analysis and qualitative designs, my contribution to this field of adult education research is to closely explore empirical cases that are not necessarily identified as practices in which questions of learning are accentuated.

Taking that as a point of departure, I will, in this keynote, talk about what happens when research domains, theoretical/methodological frameworks, and empirical cases are combined in somewhat unexpected ways. My aim is to illustrate how such an approach may provide important lessons, particularly in how it demands analytical attentiveness to intricate and powerful learning processes that are an integral part of everyday life, brimming with nuances, details, and contradictions. In my research on topics like parenting and dating, respectively, I grapple with commonplace, yet quite complex questions: How is learning made relevant in talk on dating, and in what ways are subjectivities shaped through such discourses? How do adults come to grips with, and oppose, the portrayals of parenting in the media and popular culture? What practices do adults activate to shape and foster themselves, and others, to become ‘good’ parents? How may the dystopian narrative of digital dating experiences that apparently dominates, nevertheless bear transformative potentials?

In this context, I will furthermore highlight the perhaps self-evident, yet essential, need to cultivate curiosity and encourage critical stances in the social practices of research where we create, negotiate, and establish knowledge. Aligning with stances taken for research as craft, I will address the importance of promoting explorative modes, wrestling with concepts and tools, and delving into rigorous analytical work to push boundaries, inspire conceptual shifts, and initiate new debates. A dynamic – and not always straightforward – interplay between curiosity, craft, and critique is crucial for seriously investigating the diverse landscape of learning, also reflecting the numerous practices of everyday life that matters to people. Probably, these elements are equally important in our collaborative effort to build robust research communities and achieve cutting-edge research in educational science.

While preapring for ECER 2025, read the Blog Post introducing some specifics of educational research in Serbia.
Towards reconnecting within and beyond the educational research community in Serbia