The purpose of this research was to explore the relationship between learning and identity in relation to five key participants in two specific learning settings. Holland et al.’s (1998) and Holland and Lave’s (2001) work on identity as constructed and practised and Marková’s (2003) work on the links between identity, dialogicality and dialogue informed my choice of research topic. I conducted my field work in two courses for adults learning in classrooms in Scottish further education (FE) colleges. Although I engaged with both student groups and their teachers I focused primarily on five learners. I used a biographical and interpretative approach to consider matters of identity with these five learners. I also used semi-structured interviews with them, the wider student groups and their teachers to explore perceptions and experiences of learning and whether learning had led to changes in them. Although there was evidence of some permanence in the identities of the five learners I found that in the main their identities were situated, constructed and practised. I also found that learning processes and experiences in the classroom were as significant to them as other major self-making events in their lives. Their inherent dialogicality and its articulation through dialogical processes were evident in their accounts of the forging of their identities in their current learning settings and in their wider lives. It was clear that these specific learning settings, through the use of dialogue as the major learning tool and varied learner groupings, promoted these learners’ dialogicality and offered opportunities for them to affirm selves and to construct and practise new selves. Their accounts also show that their views of their histories, their current situations and their futures were reframed as a result of changes to and enactment of selves in the learning context.

These five learners saw their learning processes and experiences as strongly interconnected with their wider social and personal environments and therefore aspects of the identities they forged in their learning contexts were also enacted in their wider lives and vice versa. I therefore concluded from my research that in relation to these five learners in these specific FE settings, there was a significant link between learning and identity.