Biographical Learning Research Articles

Opportunities and challenges to human flourishing – biographical learning experiences of ITE graduates in Singapore

ABSTRACT In the performative meritocracy of Singapore where academic achievement is seen as the key to success in the society, vocational education is seen as inferior in the education system. This paper examines the educational experiences of vocational youths who went through the Institute of Technical Education (ITE), an institution that is often not seen as a school of choice. We investigate the life and educational experiences of ITE graduates examining interview data collected through the Biographical Narrative Interpretive Method (BNIM), which elicit lived experiences in narrative form. Through studying the graduates’ biographical learning narratives, we explore the opportunities and challenges to human flourishing. This study has implications for enhancing the ecology of learning as well as VET standing in Singapore and beyond.

Living and learning in the retail sector: transactions of young adults’ life course experiences and workplace learning opportunities

This paper seeks to bridge the existing knowledge gap between workplace learning and life course studies by investigating how young adults in the retail industry identify, pursue, and actualise learning opportunities in their workplaces. It considers the elements from their life course that either facilitate or impede these learning opportunities. The study contributes to workplace learning and life course studies by constructing a nuanced understanding of young adults’ agency in navigating their learning and development within the work context. The research is based on an exploratory single case study of young adults working in the Danish retail sector, specifically in non-specialised food handling. Learning biography vignettes (LBV) serves as the empirical foundation for analysis. The findings highlight the complex interplay between personal life events, social support, work environments, and individual agency in shaping the learning and development trajectories of young adults. The research underscores the need for workplaces to be supportive and flexible, providing a range of learning opportunities. It is vital that these environments recognise individual agency and cater to both the personal and professional growth needs of young adults.

Categories as learning practice: navigating contested belonging along transatlantic mobile trajectories

ABSTRACT Although mobility-related categorization processes are central to migration studies, the ways that mobile populations understand, adapt, or contest them remain understudied. To trace such interpretations across both space and time, this paper explores a migrant trajectory that first crossed national borders within Africa before continuing to Brazil and later proceeding to Canada. The research combines ethnographic insights with the autobiographic reflections of one protagonist, whose perspectives and experiences move between different places, countries, institutions, people, and critical events. Following that individual’s learning processes, this article traces which categories were meaningful in the context of origin, how these changed in the interaction with different authorities, how transformative events played into valorizations, and which signs of categorical dissolution were recognizable during these trajectories. A biographical learning perspective sees not only the aspirations and the ideals but also the pragmatism and skepticism around the impact of mobility-related categories change along such journeys.

Biographically Anchored Liturgies as a Starting Point for Liturgical Formation

The liturgical professional development project for pastoral workers and clergy in the Diocese of Rottenburg-Stuttgart has been developed in collaboration with the Department of Liturgical Studies at the University of Tübingen. The concept of biographical learning is the innovative element that explores a new type of liturgical formation (Bildung) where the learning content explores the participant’s unique biography of learning, faith development, and theological education and the impact of these on their understanding of the liturgy and their liturgical practice. The learning process aims to equip professional pastoral theologians to reflect on and be responsive to the liturgical–pastoral contexts in which they work. The Department of Liturgical Studies provides the learning structure and context, while the diocese provides the teaching space and enables the participants to attend. The learning outcomes are unrelated to a specific professional or employment structure or associated with a points system, management, or career progression process. The project provides a learning process rather than a program of learning, distinguishing itself from many traditional approaches to liturgical formation. The challenge for the teaching team is to provide the participants with conceptual or theoretical material to reflect on their biographical narrative of theology and then apply this concept of biographical learning in their specific and diverse pastoral contexts. As part of the biographical learning process, participants contribute to “feedback loops” to the diocese and the teaching team. This paper does not address the competency framework for career development, employment assessment, or learning comprehension. All evaluations of professionalism, role attainment, career development, and competency are employment matters and are the purview of the Diocese of Rottenburg-Stuttgart. However, the learning process provides participants with frameworks for self-assessment and feedback loops to evaluate the teaching team, the process, and the content.

LEARNING ACTIVITIES FOR TEACHING PROFESSION SPECIFIC TRANSLATION TO STUDENT TEACHERS OF ENGLISH ON THE TOPIC OF TEACHERS AND LEARNERS: NEW ROLES AND COMPETENCES.

LEARNING ACTIVITIES FOR TEACHING PROFESSION SPECIFIC TRANSLATION TO STUDENT TEACHERS OF ENGLISH ON THE TOPIC OF TEACHERS AND LEARNERS: NEW ROLES AND COMPETENCES.

'I feel different…'

Accessing higher education is a biographical learning experience for all students, which can promote transformations in individuals’ identities. This article aims to investigate the implications of biographical learning experiences on the students’ identities. We will explore African students’ biographical learning experiences in Portuguese higher education and how they shaped their identities. Biographical learning and identity theoretical perspectives were adopted. This is a qualitative study that used biographical interviews with 22 African students enrolling at Portuguese higher education. The content analysis carried out has been organized into 2 themes: biographical learning experiences and identity transformations. The results of the study show that African students gained new knowledge and skills and became more independent and autonomous. They develop their self-confidence and open-mindedness through a new way of seeing the world. Thus, African students’ experiences in higher education contributed to the formation and transformation of their identity.

Learning from the Past: Continuity as a Dimension of Transformation

The article discusses (the restoration of a sense of) continuity as a necessary part of transformative learning. Using the lenses of rhythm theory, biographical learning, and memory studies, it highlights both the individual and social dimensions for making sense of the past after a period of change. Discussing the example of an individual transformation and the social transition of Eastern Europe in the 1980s–1990s, it explores two aspects of the transformation process: the need for stability and the selective and altering nature of our process of remembrance. It advocates for developing the capacity to reflect on how we relate to our past and how we narrate the course of our lives.

The Effectiveness of a Blended Learning-Based Life Design Course: Implications of Instruction and Application of Technology.

Due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021 in Taiwan, we have adapted the face-to-face Life Design course to a blended learning approach with educational technology to cope with the problem of cross-generational confusion and anxiety towards later life from learners.The objectives of this study are to.evaluate learners' reactions after attending the Life Design course including their level of satisfaction, engagement (Level 1), and the applicability of courses in their life.evaluate their learning outcomes after attending the Life Design course, such as their acquisition of knowledge, skills, attitudes, confidence, commitment (Level 2), and behavioral changes (Level 3).explore the factors that enable and prevent students from transferring their learning in this course to the action taking and making behavioral changes.explore how the application of educational technology can enhance the teaching and learning in the Life Design course. This study used an action research method to solve two main problems we identified in practice: students' confusion about their future life and the shortcomings of traditional teaching methods, which cannot meet the learning needs of this type of course due to the requirement of intensive personal reflection and self-disclosure. Participants were 36 master's students who completed the Life Design course. Based on this course's design, implementation, and evaluation, we used the new Kirkpatrick Learning Assessment Model (Kirkpatrick J, Kirkpatrick WK. An introduction to the new world Kirkpatrick Model. Kirkpatrick Partners, 2021) to analyze the learning effectiveness on the Reaction, Learning, and Behavioral levels. To facilitate learners to overcome the cross-generational confusion of their life design and solve the shortage of face-to-face teaching methods, we took biographical learning as the core theme for this Life Design course and designed online and offline learning activities. The blended learning approach with educational technology allowed us to go beyond time and location constraints and provide a holistic and inseparable learning experience in both formats. The result of the evaluation shows that students who took the Life Design course were highly satisfied with the overall course design, topics, and the suitability of a blended learning approach, which motivated them to extend their learning outside the classroom and helped them benefit from a more trusted, personal and hybrid interaction with teachers and their peers both online and offline. On the learning level, students not only learned the correct knowledge of age perspectives, changed their views of career and personal development, and acquired skills for life design, but were also confident and committed to applying what they have learned in their future life. After the course, many students applied and integrated the learning into behavioral changes in their life. In terms of the difficulties and hindrances encountered in action taking, many students mentioned the lack of peers' support and constraints from their busy daily life. Many suggested providing extra support after the course with regular impulse, follow-ups, and individual feedback from teachers and peers in an online learning community. This indicates how educational technology can better support these elements in continuous learning and the transfer of learning. Based on these results, we affirm that implementing this Life Design course with a blended learning approach is indeed better than a fully physical course. However, the focus of a blended learning approach should be on learners from a pedagogical perspective rather than technology.

Auto-narrative Work as a form of Art Therapy and Contemporary Challenges

This article presents the assumptions, the aims, and the course of the author's project of art-therapeutic auto-narrative work as a form of an adult development support. The problem concerns proactivity and reflexivity of an individual facing various challenges. The article describes sociological concepts regarding human condition and proposes related definitions of the title challenges. The theoretical background of auto-narrative work is presented by referring to narrative and biographical learning, narrative identity, biographical work, and self-creation. A sketch of the art therapy process leading to increase the ability to better cope with everyday life and achieve self-awareness is outlined. The problem requires further study, research, and discussion of its applicability in practice.

"Biographical Learning" reloaded. Theoretical grounding of a challenging appoach

Abstract. This article discusses an apparently ‘outdated’ concept of thinking about learning within the lifespan. Obviously, the term ‘biographical learning’ has been replaced by the label of ‘lifelong learning’. In a first section, this position is critically examined and the importance of the biography for all learning experiences is emphasised. In a second step of argumentation, it is conceptually specified what the peculiarity of biographical learning actually is. The specifity of this learning concept can only be understood from a biographical perspective through the dimensions of ‘temporality’, ‘contextuality’ and ‘reflexivity’. The concluding third part introduces the concept of ‘biographicity’ and proposes a theoretical understanding of the complex biographical learning idea using the ‘grammar metaphor’ from language theory.

Minsk Narratives. An emerging learning biography in times of protest

Minsk Narratives. An emerging learning biography in times of protest

Narratives of the urban-rural divide: learning trajectories of three women returnees to a small mill town

ABSTRACT This paper explores learning trajectories in becoming ‘rural women’ in Sweden, by using a biographical and socially-situated learning perspective. The data is based on in-depth biographical interviews with three young women who moved between rural and urban areas, and finally decided to return to a rural area. The findings show three learning phases: the mythical, the questioning and the self-positioning phase. Furthermore, the paper identifies four types of learning spaces of urban and rural areas: an imagined, a career-related, a cultural-emotional and a biographical learning space. The paper offers valuable insights about everyday life learning and identity development in young adulthood, and how stereotypes of rural areas negatively impact on young adults’ views of themselves and their life choices.Keywords: young female, rural/urban dived, countryside returnees, learning space and trajectories, biographical learning.

Migration Experiences, Learning and Identity (Re)construction: An Analysis of the Autobiographical Story of Neža Gerkšič, a.k.a. Agnes Lacroix

Migration is an important life transition that creates opportunities for both learning and the (re)construction of identity. In this article, we discuss the migration experiences of great aunt Neža Gerkšič, a.k.a. Agnes Lacroix, as a field of learning being interpreted through the theory of biographical learning. Biographical learning is treated as a process occurring in everyday life and the (re)construction of identity, knowledge, skills, attitudes, and values. The study, following the phenomenological paradigm of qualitative research, was developed on the basis of an autobiographical record that includes the entire course of Neža's life and all her migrations. By analyzing the autobiographical record, we show how, in the first half of the twentieth century, this active subject of migration acquired knowledge and (re)constructed her identity through various strategies.

Formación, saberes experienciales y aprendizaje biográfico

The notion of biographical learning is developed in the field of continuing professional training. It is linked to the recognition of knowledge and skills that come from experience and the consideration in the proposals and training contents of the individualization of personal and professional paths. By bringing out the founding role of the biographical report referring to training, the training proposals through “life stories” give access to the experiential dimension of the learning processes and to the logic of biographical construction from which the acquisition and the appropriation of knowledge. With the notions of knowing from experience, of the biographical constitution of knowledge, the notion of biographical learning contributes to establishing the framework of a biographical theory of learning.

Exploring Narratives of Biographical Learning Experiences of Parents of Children with Developmental Disabilities

Exploring Narratives of Biographical Learning Experiences of Parents of Children with Developmental Disabilities

Koncepcja „dobrego rodzicielstwa” jako przejaw biograficznego uczenia się dorosłego dziecka alkoholika. W stronę interpretacji andragogicznej

y. The main purpose of this article is an attempt to reconstruct and describe the phenomenon of biographical learning of “good parenting” that emerges from the analysis and interpretation of one of the biographies studied by the author. The concept of “good parenting,” which is one of the few main analytical categories extracted in the course of previous research, will serve the author as an exemplification and a manifestation of biographical learning experienced by adults undergoing psychotherapy (in this case – psychotherapy of people with the ACoA syndrome).

Struggles in Becoming Employable: Non-Traditional Student Narratives of the Transition from Higher Education to Working Life in Sweden

The notion of employability has been dominating the higher education policies and strategies of the European Union and other western countries for two decades. From an employability perspective, individuals are responsible for acquiring the skills to find and move between jobs, market themselves, and effectively express their social, personal, and cultural capital. This article focuses on non-traditional students' perspectives of their transition from higher education to working life, especially on the pathways they have taken and the struggles they have experienced in becoming employable. A biographical learning perspective is used to analyse biographical interviews with five female students who were 25 years of age or older, with a non-Swedish background, studying full time. In the students' stories, four transition pathways from higher education to working life were identified: a linear, a parallel, a further education, and a changing career pathway. The five non-traditional students struggled with becoming employable and seemed to be anxious about not being good enough at Swedish; being an outsider as a student; being overqualified; and facing discrimination in the labour market. These employability struggles mainly arise due to the assumption that all graduates are young, Swedish, without children or disabilities, and competing only with their employability within an equal labour market. Thus, the notion of employability still gives little attention to non-traditional students and has negative consequences for them.

What Influences Participation in Non-formal and Informal Modes of Continuous Vocational Education and Training? An Analysis of Individual and Institutional Influencing Factors

Participation in further education is a central success factor for economic growth and societal as well as individual development. This is especially true today because in most industrialized countries, labor markets and work processes are changing rapidly. Data on further education, however, show that not everybody participates and that different social groups participate to different degrees. Activities in continuous vocational education and training (CVET) are mainly differentiated as formal, non-formal and informal CVET, whereby further differences between offers of non-formal and informal CVET are seldom elaborated. Furthermore, reasons for participation or non-participation are often neglected. In this study, we therefore analyze and compare predictors for participation in both forms of CVET, namely, non-formal and informal. To learn more about the reasons for participation, we focus on the individual perspective of employees (invidual factors, job-related factors, and learning biography) and additionally integrate institutional characteristics (workplace and company-based characteristics). The results mainly show that non-formal CVET is still strongly influenced by institutional settings. In the case of informal CVET, on the other hand, the learning biography plays a central role.

Toward an Agentic Approach to Activist Learning: TheInterplayBetween Agency and Learning in the Narrative of Polish Activist

This article develops an agentic approach to activist learning and analyzes the interplay between agency and learning. The agentic approach derives from Alheit’s concept of biographical learning and Emirbayer and Mische’s concept of agency. The article builds on the case study of an activist’s narrative to show that the development of agency is not a linear process, and that no single unilateral relation was discernible between learning and agency. The interrelations between agency and learning are analyzed in the context of temporality, causation, and agentic dimensions. The article suggests a cycle of learning, action, and agency in activism as a framework for the study of activists learning.

Rastreamento de aprendizagem informal na perspectiva da aprendizagem ao longo da vida

Ao considerar aprendizagem como um contínuo, baseada na experiência, situada a partir do contexto e da história de vida do indivíduo, que contece e se manifesta em múltiplos espaços, é preciso assumir que a maior parte do que aprendemos não acontece em espaços tradicionalmente educacionais. Esse cenário impõe a necessidade de discutir e revelar mais dessa parcela da aprendizagem que acontece informalmente. Este estudo procura abordar estratégias para o rastreamento e reconhecimento de aprendizagem informal, que se manifesta em múltiplos tempos e espaços. Da perspectiva de ecossistemas de aprendizagem, são analisadas as diferentes estratégias, especialmente a xAPI da TLA, como alternativas para captura ou rastreamento, análise e informação de aprendizagem. Nesse caminho, se discute os desafios e potencialidades para acrescentar mais elementos à biografia de aprendizagem dos indivíduos.