Learning, Identity and Agency in the Life Course - Teaching and ...

TeachingLearningandRESEARCHBRIEFINGJuly 2008 Number 51Learning Lives:Learning, Identity and Agency in the Life CourseThe ambition of the Learning Lives project was to investigate what learningmeans and does in the lives of adults. Over a three-year period we conductedmore than 500 interviews with about 120 adults aged 25-84. In addition weanalysed data from the British Household Panel Survey, an annual survey ofabout 5,500 UK households. The Learning Lives project took a biographicalapproach, focusing on individual adults and their learning biographies andtrajectories.• Learning is ubiquitous at all stages of lifeand varies in its significance and value.Broad and varied opportunities for learningneed to be available throughout the lifecourse, and should be underpinned byaccessible information, advice and guidance.• Learning is complex and multi-faceted,and can only be understood relationally.Support for learning includes but goes farbeyond teaching. Good support requiresadaption to personal circumstances andsituations, and the building of valuedrelationships.• People can learn from their lives throughthe stories they tell about them. This isimportant for their identity and agency.There is no ready-made curriculum fornarrative learning. Prescriptive modes donot fit the process of narrative identityconstruction.• Following individuals over time generatesa different understanding of participationin formal education and training from thatgained by a snapshot view.Understanding participation in formaleducation and training requires a lifecourse perspective which pays attentionto differences between generations.www.tlrp.orgTeaching and Learning Research Programme

The researchWhat we foundWe found that learning of some sort isubiquitous in people’s lives. We generatedextensive, fine-grained longitudinalevidence of the variety, scope,characteristics and trajectories of learningin the life course. This has helped us tounderstand the value and significance oflearning in people’s lives. Our analyseshave also generated insights into therelationships between learning, identityand agency.Longitudinal evidence of learningthrough the life-courseThis project generated detailed evidenceof the ubiquity and variety of learning inadults’ lives. We found that much learningis tacit and routinised. Just as learning canlead to significant changes in people’slives, life-changing events often triggerlearning, We also showed that adultshave widely differing dispositions towardslearning. For many, learning is merely afactor of life, a continual striving to dealwith problems. For a minority, the senseof being a learner is an important part oftheir identity. In some cases this learneridentity is focussed on formal education,but substantial informal learning is alwaysrelated to it.While learning is sometimes valued forthe outcomes it brings, people often valueengagement in learning for its own sake.Individuals differ in their judgements ofwhat counts as good or worthwhilelearning. The judgements of individualsmay be at odds with official policy, andthis can impact negatively on adults’opportunities to learn what is importantto them. Learning is not necessarily apositive experience and does not alwayshave positive outcomes. Progression andtransitions in people’s lives, such asretirement, can valuably be understoodas learning processes. Especially withineducation and employment, there aresignificant barriers to progression forsome people.Longitudinal evidence of learningfrom life through narrative andnarrationThis project has generated detailedevidence of the ways in which adults learnfrom their lives. Life history methodologyhas helped us to explore the significanceof narrative and narration in these learningprocesses, something we have capturedin the idea of ‘narrative learning’. We havefound that stories and story-telling areimportant vehicles for learning from one’slife. We have been able to show howdifferences in the ‘narrative quality’ oflife stories, including their intensity, theirdescriptive or evaluative content, theirflexibility and the presence of a plot,correlate with learning processes andoutcomes.We have found important differences inthe efficacy of life stories and have shownthat there are relationships between stylesof narration, forms of narrative learningand agency. We have found that thecapacity to learn from one’s life is not fixedbut can be learned. Life stories play acrucial role in the articulation of a senseof self. This means that narrative learningis a form of identity work which involvesinternal conversations and social practicesof story telling. Social opportunities fornarrating one’s life story are importantfor practising and improving narrativelearning.Longitudinal evidence oftrajectories of participation inpart-time education and trainingOur analysis of qualitative data identifiedtwo types of engagement with part-timeeducation and training. Some participationinvolved low levels of involvement, withlittle impact upon identity. But other adultsdevelop a high level of involvement inwhich being a learner or student becomesan important part of their life and identity.It is this high-level involvement which canlead to personal change, including theachievement of agency. For these people,participation in part-time education andtraining is a long-term process, not aquick fix. Analysis of British HouseholdPanel Survey data gave us a detailedempirical understanding of participation inpart-time education and training, of thefactors influencing such participation, andof trajectories of participation. Knowingchange at the level of each individual gaveus a more accurate picture of the trueextent of change and non-participationthan has been available hitherto, and drewattention to the need for a longitudinalperspective which avoids a focus oninstantaneous effects.The evidence shows that (i) mostparticipation did not result in a higher levelqualification; (ii) gender effects are moreimportant than age effects, particularlyamong younger people, although youngwomen who made an early transition intoparenthood had a higher probability thanany of their contemporaries of returningto formal learning later on; (iii) there isa strong age effect whereby almosteverybody stops participating by age 55;(iv) participation patterns are influencedby prior learning and, separately, byemployment, including whether it wasmanual or non-manual; (v) participation isaffected by externally imposed events inpeople’s lives as well as by the choicesthey made, including the timing of theseevents and choices; (vi) social class statusat age 14, and mothers’ and fathers’education and work histories, affectparticipation in education.Learning and identityWe have defined identity as one’s senseof self and have theorised this in terms ofthe dispositions people have towardsthemselves and towards their life andlearning. We found that people’sdispositions and their social positionscan both enable and constrain learning.Many aspects of the sense of self remainimplicit. But they can become moreexplicit at times of change and crisis,although particular dispositions and aparticular sense of self may sometimesprevent learning and change. Thenarration of one’s life story is an importantvehicle for expressing one’s sense ofself, and also for articulating and activelyconstructing it. When people go throughmajor life-changing events. they are oftenpresented with a need to learn, so thatrelationships between identity and learningoften become clear at times of crisis andchange. Learning can then contribute tochanges in some dispositions, and thusto changes in a person’s identity. But insome cases, existing dispositions are sostrong that learning and subsequentchange in identity do not happen. Ourdata suggest a widespread need for theconstruction of a coherent life-story thathelps individuals to make sense and cometo terms with their life, and adjust tochanges in their lives.Learning and agencyWe have taken agency to be about thesituated ability to give direction to one’slife. We have found that learning itself mayor may not be driven by the decisionsof the individual. It can be self-initiatedor forced by others, or be incidental.Learning may result in an increase ordecrease in agency. Increased agencyseems to be more obvious and common,but much depends on the extent to whichpeople acknowledge that they havelearned something. This is more obviousin relation to formal education and training,often because qualifications open up newpossibilities for action. Experiences ofsuccessful learning also impact positivelyon people’s self-confidence, which in turncan lead to increased agency in manyaspects of their lives. The researchindicates that the extent to which learningtranslates into agency depends on arange of factors including the particularecological conditions of people’s actions.Learning can damage people’s agencywhen they find that things are too difficultor that they cannot cope, which in turnimpacts upon their sense of self.www.tlrp.orgTeaching and Learning Research Programme

Theorising learningthrough the life courseLearning, position, identity andagencyBuilding on earlier work on learningcultures and a cultural understanding oflearning, we have developed a frameworkfor understanding learning through the lifecourse. It sees learning as being enabledor constrained by the relationshipsbetween the positions of the learner andtheir learning, and by the dispositions andactions of the learner. There are differenttypes of position including socialstructures, such as class, gender andethnicity; the generations to which peoplebelong; and the situations where learningtakes place. Any situation in which peopleare active has a learning culture, made upof the cultural practices that enable andconstrain learning in that situation. Thesecultural practices consist of positionedand unequal social relations. The variousforces making up the total field arerelationally interdependent.Using Bourdieu, we understand identityas the dispositions people have towardsthemselves. Identity is embodied, not justcognitive, and is partly tacit. If and whenidentity changes, learning is an inherentpart of that change process. Learningcan contribute to and facilitate identitymodification, but can also work toconsolidate existing identities.Relationships between the person andtheir positions are mediated by theavailability and utilisation of economic,cultural and social capital, which workpartly via the actions of the learner andothers. Some of these actions can beseen as either achieving or utilisingagency. Learning, dispositions, identityand positions all enable or constrainagency.Activity which is driven by agency cancontribute to changes in dispositionsand identity, and to some aspects of aperson’s position. Agency can also help toreorient and reposition people in relationto the generations and social structuresthey inhabit, and the learning cultures theyparticipate in. It can contribute to activityin new situations and therefore to newlearning cultures. Agency is influenced bythe positions of the actor, the positionsand actions of others, and by the identityand dispositions of the actor. It cancontribute to consolidation or changein any of these. The achievement andutilisation of agency are enabled andconstrained by learning, and can enableor constrain new learning.Narrative learningBuilding on existing research onbiographical learning, we have paidspecific attention to the role of narrativeand narration in the ways in which peopleMajor implicationsOur research shows that people canexperience learning as valuable in thefollowing circumstances:• Learning can help people with theprocesses of routine living• Learning can help people adjust tochanged circumstances• Learning can provide valuable knowledgeor skills for particular purposes, includingemployment and career change• Learning can contribute to changingself-identity• Learning can contribute to theachievement of agency.Learning for any person or group is alwaysenabled and constrained by their horizonsfor learning There are always limits to whatcan be learned, so that strategies forimproving learning need to vary to meetdifferent people’s needs and differentcircumstances.Our research suggests four broadapproaches to improving learning:• Provision of formal education and training(courses, workshops, etc.)• Personal support for the learner, whichmay be professional (career guidance,workplace mentoring, tutoring, provisionof learning materials, etc) or informal(friends, colleagues, family, localcommunity)• Enhancing learning cultures, that is,improving opportunities for learning inparticular locations (workplace, localcommunity, etc).• Providing opportunities for self-reflection,including talking, writing, thinkingabout our own life histories and lifecircumstances.learn from their lives. We have developeda theory of narrative learning in which thelife narrative is not only the outcome oflearning, but is also seen as a site forbiographical learning. What distinguishesa life narrative from a life story is thepresence of a plot, an organising principlethat allows the narrator to select, organiseand present life events in a particularorder, which might be sequential orthematic. The presence of a plot can betaken as an indication of biographicallearning. The efficacy of such learning isrelated to the extent to which the narratoris aware of the plot.Key concepts in our theory of narrativelearning are ‘narrative quality’ (a rangeof different characteristics of narratives);Our research further suggests that:• Broad and varied opportunities forlearning need to be available throughoutthe entire life course, and should beunderpinned by widely accessibleinformation, advice and guidance.• Support for learning includes but goes farbeyond teaching. Good support requiresadaption to personal circumstances andsituations, and the building of valuedrelationships.• Narrative learning can be important forpeople’s identity and agency. There isno ready-made curriculum for narrativelearning since prescriptive modes donot fit the process of narrative identityconstruction.• Understanding participation in formaleducation and training requires a lifecourse perspective and needs to payattention to generational differences andeffects.• Intergenerational learning is a neglectedaspect of lifelong learning• Participation in formal education andtraining is determined by employmentstatus, so a large part of the adultpopulation is not likely to be included.This is particularly important becauserecent changes in the lifelong learningsystem have strengthened its relationshipto employment.• Participation in formal education andtraining, both to enhance employabilityand for personal development, is likelyto be hindered by policies which focuson short course content acquisition andremove public funding from equivalent orlower qualifications.• Serious thought needs to be given to therelationship between new forms ofpersonalised learning and the definitionsof narrative learning emanating from thisproject.‘learning potential’ (the extent to which lifenarratives allow for learning from one’slife); and ‘action potential’ (the practicaloutcomes of narrative learning). Actionpotential is important for agency, whereasidentity is an important aspect of thelearning potential of narratives. Althoughthere has been attention to narrativeand narration in adult learning and ineducational research more generally, theLearning Lives project has been the firstto develop this into a theory of narrativelearning.Teaching and Learning Research Programmewww.tlrp.org

FurtherinformationThe best source for further information isthe project website which provides accessto many project publications, includingconference presentations, a short film, anda series of occasional project workingpapers. The website can be accessed atwww.learninglives.org or via the TLRPwebsite: www.tlrp.org.We have documented our main findings infour summative working papers, which canbe downloaded from the project website:Hodkinson, P., with H. Hodkinson, R.Hawthorn & G. Ford (2008). Learning throughlife. Learning Lives Summative WorkingPaper 1.Biesta. G.J.J., Goodson, I.F., Tedder, M.T. &Adair, N.A. (2008). Learning from life: Therole of narrative. Learning Lives SummativeWorking Paper 2.Field, J., Lynch, H. & Malcolm, I. (2008).Generations, the life course and lifelonglearning. Learning Lives Summative WorkingPaper 3.Macleod, F.J. & Lambe, P. (2008).Understanding the place of part timeeducation and training in the lives of adultsin Britain 1991-2005. Learning LivesSummative Working Paper 4.A Gateway book on the project, entitledImproving Learning Lives, and a book onNarrative Learning, will be published byRoutledge in 2009. A special issue of theOxford Review of Education devoted tothe Learning Lives project is scheduled forpublication in 2010.The warrantThis project combined retrospectivelife-history research, longitudinal interpretativelife-course research and quantitative surveyresearch. We conducted 528 interviewswith 117 people (59 male; 58 female) agedbetween 25 and 84 over a three-year period.We further analysed data from the BritishHousehold Panel Survey, an annual panelsurvey of each adult member of a nationallyrepresentative sample of 5,500 Britishhouseholds (ca. 10,000 individuals per wave).A total of 15 waves were available and wereused for analysis.Thematic analysis of interview data focusedon larger numbers of cases around particularthemes, using both theoretically drivenanalysis and data-driven analysis. Biographicalanalysis focused on the in-depth analysis ofindividuals and resulted in the construction ofdetailed individual case studies.Five analyses of BHPS data were conducted.They looked at patterns and trends in part -time formal education in the UK in relation tonation, class, place, gender, age and disability(1998-2003); predicting the occurrence andtiming of transition into adult educationamongst 1997 school leavers; the dynamicsof participation between 1992 and 2005;mapping trajectories of participation ineducation and training in relation to other lifecourse events (1992-2005); and outcomesof education and training in terms ofqualifications across all 15 waves.Whereas biographical and life-history methodshave been utilised in previous research onadult and lifelong learning, the Learning Livesproject has been exceptional because of itsscale, length and its longitudinal real timedesign, and because it has combinedinterview data with quantitative longitudinaldata.Teachingand LearningResearch ProgrammeTLRP involves some 90 research teamswith contributions from England, NorthernIreland, Scotland and Wales. Work beganin 2000 and the Technology EnhancedLearning phase will continue to 2012.Learning: TLRP’s overarching aim isto improve outcomes for learners of allages in teaching and learning contextsacross the UK.Outcomes: TLRP studies a broadrange of learning outcomes, includingthe acquisition of skill, understanding,knowledge and qualifications and thedevelopment of attitudes, values andidentities relevant to a learning society.Lifecourse: TLRP supports projectsand related activities at many ages andstages in education, training and lifelonglearning.Enrichment: TLRP commits to userengagement at all stages of research.It promotes research across disciplines,methodologies and sectors, andsupports national and internationalco-operation.Expertise: TLRP works to enhancecapacity for all forms of research onteaching and learning, and for researchinformed policy and practice.Improvement: TLRP develops theknowledge base on teaching andlearning and policy and practice inthe UK.Project website:www.learninglives.orgProject contact:Professor Gert BiestaThe Stirling Institute of EducationUniversity of Stirling, Stirling FK9 4LA Scotland UKe-mail: gert.biesta@stir.ac.ukphone: (+44) 1786-466136Project team:ISBN-978-0-85473-9 7 8 0 8 5 4 7 3 8 1 8 2Project Directors: Professor Gert Biesta (Principal Award Holder), University of Stirling,Dr Flora Macleod, University of Exeter, Professor Ivor Goodson, University of Brighton, Professor PhilHodkinson, University of Leeds, Professor John Field, University of StirlingResearch Fellows: Dr Michael Tedder, University of Exeter, Dr Paul Lambe, University of Exeter, DrNorma Adair, University of Brighton, Irene Malcolm, University of Stirling, Dr Heather Lynch, Universityof Stirling, Geoff Ford, Senior Consultant TAEN (The Age and Employment Network), and Fellow of theNational Institute of Careers Education and Counselling, Ruth Hawthorn, Fellow of the National Instituteof Careers Education and Counselling July 2008TLRP Directors’ TeamProfessor Andrew Pollard | LondonProfessor Richard Noss | LondonProfessor Miriam David | LondonProfessor Alan Brown | WarwickProfessor Mary James | LondonTLRP Programme OfficeSarah Douglas | sarah.douglas@ioe.ac.ukJames O’Toole | j.o’toole@ioe.ac.uktlrp@ioe.ac.ukTLRPInstitute of EducationUniversity of London20 Bedford WayLondon WC1H 0ALUKTel +44 (0)20 7911 5577www.tlrp.org