ESREA, ACCESS, LEARNING CAREERS AND IDENTITIES NETWORK
November 24th to 26th 2011 | University of Aveiro | Portugal
TRANSITIONS AND IDENTITY IN LEARNING AND LIFE
conference theme [PT version]
Research on adult education and transitions is an emerging but an increasingly popular area of research, particularly in the field of higher education, (Field et al, 2009) as it reflects the nature of life in late modernity. A person’s lifecourse is less linear now and instead may be subject to changes, often external such as losing a job or more personal ones such as a divorce. At times of change some people may look to returning to learn and adult education as a means of transforming their life in a different and ‘better’ direction. Learning and adult education may be perceived by the learner as an opportunity for self-development, changing identity and transformation as well as gaining educational, social and economic benefits. For some adults transitions in learning may not always be positive as they struggle to cope with their learning or with external and/ or personal constraints. Transitions may, instead of a taking a person forward, move them backwards or back to where they were before they started learning as they find it impossible to ‘keep on going on’.
Research on transitions has been helped by the development and growth in the use of biographical methods in adult education across Europe (West et al, 2007) as biographies capture a person’s experiences of transitions across a lifecourse. Research is revealing the complexities between the experiences of learning and transitions in a range of adult education context. It can also help to inform policy and practice.
Papers, poster session and round tables will address one or more of the following areas across the wide range of adult education contexts:
– How transitions are shaped and experienced by adult students in relation to class, gender, ethnicity, age or disability
– Conceptual and theoretical approaches to transitions, identity and learning career
– Patterns of transitions and identity in relation to retention and drop-out
– The impact of learning, identity and transitions in relation to family, work and community
– The interconnection (or not) between learning and the lifecourse
– Methodological approaches to researching transitions and identity
