Session Information
Contribution
In this paper the authors wish to theoretically and empirically reflect on the learning orientations of people active in urban social movements. Such learning orientations are acquired during one’s life story, on the basis of a continuous transaction with the social and material environment. The paper is based on first empirical results of a research project, financed by the DFG (German Research Association), investigating the life stories of social movement activists.
Recent studies in Educational Science have underpinned the need to conceive of learning as a process in which “the past life history of the individual and the past history of the situation” intersect (Hodkinson et al. 2008, p. 28). In contrast to ‘situated learning’ approaches the situation here is understood as a “learning culture” or as an enduring “field” of learning, contrasted to the “habitus” of the learner (Hodkinson et al. 2008, p. 35). However, a focus on the “knowing-known events” (Dewey/Bentley 1989, p. 111f) in learning processes reveals that the differentiation of learner and culture is only analytical (Biesta/Tedder 2006).
Indeed, it is not a given habitus which structures the individual’s learning processes. Rather it is during his or her life story when the “human being acquires a habit of learning” (Dewey 1985, p. 50) which may be subject to changes as well. In our project we empirically analyze both continuity and transformation in learning. Drawing on the concept of “orientation frame” (Bohnsack 2007) we define a learning orientation as the habitualized way or modus operandi in which knowledge and skills are acquired. Such learning orientations are shaped by the ongoing experiences in situations of formal as well as informal learning and are influenced by the personal and collective habitus. The focus of our empirical research lies on learning processes within social movements, but we also take into account the formation of learning orientations in school and out-of-school settings when they prove to be important to the biographical development of the specific learning orientation relevant/activated in the social movement.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Hodkinson, Phil/Gert Biesta/David James (2008): Understanding Learning Culturally: Overcoming the Dualism Between Social and Individual Views of Learning. In: Vocations and Learning Vol. 1, No. 1, S. 27–47 Biesta, Gert/Tedder, Michael (2006): How is agency possible? Towards an ecological understanding of agency-as-achievement. Learning Lives-Working Paper 5. Exeter Dewey, John/Bentley, Arthur F. (1989): Knowing and the Known. In: Boydston, Jo A. (ed.): John Dewey - The Later Works, 1925-1953, Vol. 16: 1949-1952. Carbondale, S. 1-294 Dewey, John (1985): Democracy and Education. In: Boydston, J.A. (ed.): John Dewey - The Middle Works, 1899-1924, Vol. 9: 1916, Carbondale, S. 1-370. Bohnsack, Ralf/Pfaff, Nicole/Weller, Wivian (2010) (eds.) Qualitative Analysis and Documentary Method In International Educational Research. Opladen Nohl, Arnd-Michael (2009): Interview und dokumentarische Methode. Wiesbaden
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