From biography to learning: travelling in time via the narration of adult learners in higher education

ROZVADSKÁ, Katarína. From biography to learning: travelling in time via the narration of adult learners in higher education. In European Society for Research on the Education of Adults (ESREA) Triennial Conference 2022, Milano, Italy. 2022.

Basic information

• Original name: From biography to learning: travelling in time via the narration of adult learners in higher education
• Authors: ROZVADSKÁ, Katarína.
• Edition: European Society for Research on the Education of Adults (ESREA) Triennial Conference 2022, Milano, Italy. 2022.

Other information

• Original language: English
• Type of outcome: Presentations at conferences
• Field of Study: 50301 Education, general; including training, pedagogy, didactics [and education systems]
• Country of publisher: Czech Republic
• Confidentiality degree: is not subject to a state or trade secret
• WWW: URL
• Organization unit: Faculty of Arts
• Keywords (in Czech): biografické učení,; dospělí studenti; terciární vzdělávání; narativní analýza
• Keywords in English: biographical learning; adult students; higher education; narrative analysis
• Tags: International impact, Reviewed

Abstract

The present study investigates the narratives of biographical learning trajectories given by an under-represented and thus vulnerable group within higher education (HE) - the non-traditional students. This group is operationalised as adult learners who enter HE when they are at least 26 years old and had a break in their educational trajectory (Novotný et al., 2019). In 2019, we (in a broader research project) conducted 29 biographical narrative interviews with non-traditional students from Czech universities. This paper addresses two questions from the conference call: “How are adult lives and learning changing under the pressure of global challenges? Are there now new learning spaces, and how do learners respond to them?” This paper argues that to find out about the new ones, we have to know what the learning spaces are, how they develop over time, and how adults learn from space and time. The present study uses biographical learning as the conceptual framework to accomplish this aim. The biographical learning perspective is understood as the “study of the relationships that exist between learning and biography, the influence of biography on learning processes and practices, and biography as a mode of learning” (Tedder & Biesta 2007, p. 3).In the methodological framework, the paper combines the structural approach with the functional dimension to narrative analysis. The emerging results show that time gives meaning to learning experiences, as it creates links between them in the life story.