Self Construction and Social Transformation

8/17/2019 Self Construction and Social Transformation

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United Nations

Cultural Organization

SELF-CONSTRUCTION

AND SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION

Paul Bélanger

Lifelong, Lifewide and Life-Deep Learning


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Originally published in French as Parcours éducatis: Construction de soi et transormation sociale

(© 2015 by Les Presses de l ’Université de Montréa l)

ranslation © UNESCO Institute or Lielong Learning, 2016

UNESCO Inst itute or Lielong LearningFeldbrunnenstr. 5820148 HamburgGermany

his publication is available in Open Access under the Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 IGO (CCBY-SA 3.0 IGO) licence (http://creativecom-

mons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/igo/ ). By using the content o this pub-lication, the users accept to be bound by the terms o use o the UNESCO Open AccessRepository (http://en.unesco.org/open-access/terms-use-ccbysa-en ).

he UNESCO Institute or Lielong Learning (UIL) is a non-proit international insti-tute o UNESCO. he Institute undertakes research, capacity-building, networking andpublication on lielong learning with a ocus on adult and continuing education, literacyand non-ormal basic education. Its publications are a valuable resource or educationalresearchers, planners, policymakers and practitioners.

While the programmes o the UNESCO Inst itute or Lielong Learning are established alongthe lines laid down by the General Conerence o UNESCO, the publications o the Instituteare issued under its sole responsibility. UNESCO is not responsible or their contents.

he points o view, selection o acts and opinions expressed are those o the authors anddo not necessarily coincide with oicial positions o UNESCO or the UNESCO Instituteor Lielong Learning. he designations employed and the presentation o material inthis publication do not imply the expression o any opinion whatsoever on the part oUNESCO or the UNESCO Institute or Lielong Learning concerning the legal status o

any country or territory, or its authorities, or concerning the delimitations o the rontierso any country or territory.

Author: Paul Bélangerranslated by Albert P. Daigen

Layout and design by eresa BoeseCover image: © Wolgang Boese (www.wolgang-boese.eu)

ISBN 978-92-820 -1204-8

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For Heidi and our grandchildren


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FOREWORD 7 INTRODUCTION 11

PART ONE: RECOGNITION OF THE INTIMACY OF LEARNING 17

Chapter 1: he Intimacy of Learning 19

1.1 Changing visions o education 19

1.2 A renewed vision o human rights 27

1.3 Conclusion 32

Chapter 2: Constructing the Self and Mastering Knowledge:wo Poles of the Educational Dialectic 35

2.1 Various explorations o the intimacy o learning 36

2.2 heories o learning and the intimacy o learning 41

2.3 he learning dialectic 46

2.4 Conclusion 52

Chapter 3: Intimacy and Social ransformation 55

3.1 he new relationships to intimacy 56

3.2 Social changes and the recognition o intimacy 58

3.3 Commercial instrumentalization o intimacy 633.4 Conclusion 67

Chapter 4: ransformation of the Learning Demand 71

4.1 he duality o all learning demands 72

4.2 Socialization and individuation 74

4.3 he other side o learning demand 77

4.4 he expression o this dual demand 87

4.5 Conclusion: he return o the actor 90

PART TWO: IMPLICATIONS OF SUCH RECOGNITIONIN VARIOUS EDUCATIONAL DOMAINS 93

Chapter 5: he Intimacy of Learning in the Workplace 95

5.1 Prescribed work versus real work 97

5.2 Exchange value versus use value 102

5.3 he transormation o education and training in the workplace 106

5.4 Piloting career transitions 112

5.5 Diicu lties in negotiating or mediating the dual demand 114

5.6 Conclusion 122

CONTENTS


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Chapter 6: Te Roles of the Individual and the Community in Achieving Literacy 125

6.1 he scope and complexity o the demand or literacy in today’s societ ies 126

6.2 he social and intimate sides o learning: A necessary ambiguity 134

6.3 Conditions that acilitate or impede the learning o basic skills 1386.4 Conclusion 143

Chapter 7: Can Learning ruly Be Lifelong? 147

7.1 A discr iminatory view o the lives o older people 148

7.2 Identity breakdown and biographical continuity 150

7.3 A repressed demand and the conditions or reeing it 155

7.4 Conclusion 161

Chapter 8: Popular Education, a Necessary Complement to Formal Education 165

8.1 Historical background 165

8.2 Popular education aimed at al l adults 1678.3 Popular education in socia l movements 172

8.4 he social and intimate meaning o popular education 179

8.5 he eect o popular education on the global education project 183

8.6 Conclusion 187

Chapter 9: Harassment and Bullying at Work: A Revealing Phenomenon 189

9.1 Psychologica l harassment in the workplace 190

9.2 Recent social recognition o workplace harassment: Uncovering a new social issue 191

9.3 What we can learn rom the opposite o workplace harassment 197

9.4 Conclusion 200

PART THREE: POLICIES TO RECOGNIZE THE INTIMACY OF LEARNING 203

Chapter 10: Policies, Programmes and Practices 205

10.1 he commencement o people’s educational biographies 205

10.2 Adult lielong learning 215

10.3 Explicit and indirect policies or adult learning and education 225

10.4 Conclusion 229 Chapter 11: Conclusion 233

11.1 Autonomy o action: An essentia l competency in the uture 233

11.2 Indispensable educational pathways 237

11.3 Indispensable socia l conditions 239

11.4 oward a broader, deeper vision o lielong learning 243

11.5 he right to lielong learning or all and everyone 244

BIBLIOGRAPHY 249

FURTHER READING 282


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he twenty-irst century is calling or major transormation, bothpersonal and societal, in the ways we work, learn and develop.he 2030 Agenda or Sustainable Development speaks directly tothe need to acilitate and enact this transormation at local andglobal levels so that we can ‘ensure inclusive and equitable qual-ity education and promote lielong learning opportunities or all’(Sustainable Development Goal 4) and ‘achieve gender equality

and empower all women and girls’ (Sustainable Development Goal5). ransormation through lielong learning and education is verymuch needed at this time.

Te UNESCO Institute or Lielong Learning (UIL) is pleased topublish this English translation o Parcours éducatis : Constructionde soi et transormation sociale, because it derives rom a strong in-tellectual heritage with a ocus on lielong learning. Te transor-mation that is aspired to in this book necessitates improved socialconditions to enable personal and intrinsically social demands andaspirations to be met. Te intersection o personal and social de-mands represents a perennial challenge or UIL: to find creativeways to negotiate the tension between constituencies that are localand global, personal and social, male and emale, young and old.

In his discussion o transormation as a goal in education andlearning, Paul Bélanger draws on a vast array o sources and ideas– philosophical, sociological, educational and cultural – to makehis argument that al l aspects o lie and learning need to be viewedas intricately connected. He insightully engages with the litera-ture on work, health, aging, popular education, literacy and gen-der to advance the notion that the integration o a learning agenda

FOREWORD


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FOREWORD

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into all aspects o experience and lie is non-negotiable i transor-mation is to be achieved. Readers will ind here provocative ideasabout why and how we must intensiy our learning and education

eorts to create change.

UIL views this publication as a vital complement to its existingpublishing, research, advocacy, networking and capacity-build-ing activities. As a longtime UNESCO director and collaborator,Bélanger brings years o experience in global and intersectoral dis-cussions on learning to this text. He urthers our thinking about

how we might go about generating new knowledge in a time thatis troubled and complicated. Most importantly, he helps us thinkabout the global agenda or education and sustainability and itsneed or a continued emphasis on lielong learning and genderequality or all.

In closing, I wish to thank Les Presses de l ’Université de Montréalor giving UIL permission to translate this book into English in or-der to make it available to a wider audience. I hope that this trans-lation will prove ruitul and challenging reading or those whoare striving to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals and tocreate transormation on a global scale.

Arne Carlsen

DirectorUNESCO Institute or Lielong Learning


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Readers may wonder how I came to be interested in the intimacy olearning, and especially how I came to regard it as a social and evensocietal issue, which may seem paradoxical.

I irst grasped the importance o the intimacy o learning whenI realized that this theme was absent, i not actively excluded, rom

educational policy and discourse, except in transormative and gen-der learning literature (English and Irving, 2012; Horsman, 2012,2013). And yet I could point, including and beyond gender exam-ples, to endless cases o individuals whose inner beings have beendamaged by traumatic educational experiences suered in silenceat every stage o their lives. Such experiences include child abuseand repression o curiosity in early childhood; academic ailure lat-er in school (ailure experienced solely as a personal responsibility,thus leading to sel-blame); workplace education and training ail-ing to take individual aspirations and expectations into account;societal denial o non-work-related learning demands; and the ex-clusion o people rom the learning society as they grow older. As Irealized how much misery individuals were quietly and intimatelyenduring because o this loss o control over their learning biog-raphy, I began to wonder about the broader social implications o

the phenomenon o too many individuals becoming too scared tolearn. However, the consequences o such hidden obstacles to indi-

viduals’ quests or autonomy and cognitive development are neverdeinitive. he intimate injuries experienced at one moment o thelie course can lead to a myriad o dierent scenarios in the uture.It is precisely this ambiguity and the many dierent biographicaloutcomes associated with it that aroused my interest in studyingthe complex, reciprocal relationships between the public and the

INTRODUCTION


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INRODUCION

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private. hat is, between external demands or socialization andor acquisition o new skills on the one hand, and, on the other,individuals’ prerogatives to construct their own identities, to pro-

tect their integrity and to steer the course o their own lives. hisincludes their learning biographies, which are, at the very least,negotiated individually and collectively.

In terms o extreme intimate injuries, society now knows moreabout and has begun to publicly recognize the impact that sexualassault can have on victims’ personal and social utures. here ismore and more discussion o these acts o intimate violence com-

mitted in private and sometimes disclosed by the victims, otenwomen and children, years later. Such public disclosure can be-come a means o deence and prevention and even, or some, away o reasserting ownership o themselves. he question, then, iswhether the same holds true or people who suer intimate educa-tional and symbolic violence that silently deprives them o controlover their plans or their own lives. How can they transcend thisnegation o their right to reconstruct themselves and to enjoy hu-man dignity? How can they rise above this denial o their entitle-ment to gratiying learning experiences?

At irst, my explorations ocused on abuse as an alienating ex-perience, but then I started trying to understand not just the at-tacks on individuals’ autonomy and cognitive aspirations, but alsotheir subsequent successul resolve to develop autonomy despitetheir experiences. he eorts o women’s groups to deend their

right to control their own bodies and their own intimate livesinspired me to better understand individuals’ new demands andpersistent quests or autonomy in their own learning biographies.hese same eorts likewise inspired the second major goal o thisbook: to investigate the social issues involved in recognizing theintimate nature o people’s learning and educational lives.

Once I had set these goals, I had to address a number o ques-tions. Is the emergence o new societal attitudes regarding intimacy


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INRODUCION

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being relected in the various educational paths that people pursue?Do the new expectations regarding people’s private lives and thenew issues in the ight against sexual aggression have their coun-

terparts in the realm o learning and education? In what ways havepeople’s educational experiences been marked by the more gen-eral transormation o public/private relations and by the growingpriority that people give to quality in their interpersonal relation-ships and a sense o personal meaning throughout their lives? Inthe learning experiences that contribute to individuals’ lie stories,is there not a constant tension between constructing one’s identity

or others and constructing one’s identity or onesel?And then a whole other set o questions arose, questions o amore immediately educational nature. How can we explain theintimacy and the subjective dimension o any experience o ed-ucational violence, and especially o its opposite: the signiicantlearning that the individual could and should experience? How isthe growing recognition o the intimate dimension o any learningexperience being expressed in people’s educational aspirations andsociety’s educational demands? In what ways, within what groups,and in what social contexts are people denouncing acts o educa-tional or symbolic violence and demanding that the intimacy olearning and o its consequences be recognized? As people’s edu-cational lie paths are being transormed, how is the aspiration toconstruct the sel and the need to acquire and master construct-ed knowledge being articulated? How do the various theories o

learning address or ail to address the individual’s quest or iden-tity and the demand or knowledge and knowledge appropriation?What are the impacts o the uneven recognition o the intimacy olearning and education at work, in social lie, and in the politicalsphere? How are the evolution and growing complexity o learn-ing demands relected in public debate on education and lielonglearning? What conditions and practices are associated with trueconsideration o the intimacy o learning?


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In examining these issues, one cannot overlook attempts to manip-ulate people’s private lives or commercial or other purposes, thusthroughout this book, it will be essential to consider the reciprocal

relationship between the private and the public and to underscorethe dierence between individuality and individualism.

In summary, we are currently witnessing a transormation notonly in our vision o education, but also in people’s learning biog-raphies. And this transormation brings to the ore three closelyrelated issues: irstly, a requirement or the empowerment o indi-

viduals in today’s society; secondly, the necessity o social condi-

tions that can enable these new, both prooundly personal and in-trinsically social, demands and aspirations to be met; and thirdly,the as yet unclear reconciliation between recognition o the inte-riority o learning experience and the objective quest or externalknowledge.

hese, then, are the questions I was curious to explore and thatmade me want to write this book and thereby begin a dialogue anddebate with you, my readers.1 We will proceed in three steps. Aterelucidating the inherently intimate dimension o learning experi-ence and its social impact (Part 1), we will examine its uneven rec-ognition in various educational spheres (Part 2) and, then, in Part3, explore the policy implications o such recognition.

1 I wish to tha nk the ollowing researchers who helped to develop this new line oinquiry at a seminar we held on this subject at the University o Duisburg-Essenin summer 2007: Albert Alheit, Regina Egetenmeyer, Heide Von Felden,Mathilde Gru nage-Monetti, Bob Hil l, Gunther Holzapel, Dirk Koob, Werner Mauch,Elena Mickunaite, Sigrid Nolda, Reddy Prasad and André Schlaeli . I wish also tothan k Leona English or her contribution in updating the reerences, especial ly ongender and adult learning.


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PART ONE

RECOGNITION OF THE INTIMACYOF LEARNING


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Interest in the intimacy o learning has grown over the past ew yearsbut is not an entirely new phenomenon. Several relatively recent trendshighlight the subjective dimension o learning events and experience.Examples include the increasing re-centering o educational practices

on the learner, the growing number o learner-empowerment initia-tives, the transormative learning literature and the recognition thateducational rights interact with all other human rights.

1.1 CHANGING VISIONS OF EDUCATION

he demand on individuals to co-determine their increasinglynon-linear educational lie paths is one o such trends relectingthe growing emphasis on the intimacy o learning.

1.1.1 INDIVIDUALIZ ATION OF EDUCATIONAL PRACTICES AND

DIVERSIFICATION OF EDUCATIONAL PATHWAYS

One defining trend in educational systems in recent years has unques-tionably been the growing number o options and specializations that

students may pursue, the growing variety o settings they may engage in,and the resultant individualization o students’ initial educational path-ways. Until the 1980s, reormers tried to correct inequities in educationby standardizing structures and curricula so as to enact a sort o ormalequality. But since then, the trend is instead to diversiy educational insti-tutions and pathways so as to serve increasingly diverse student popula-tions and provide a wider variety o educational alternatives or educa-tional paths, while trying to ensure transerability between them.

CHAPTER 1THE INTIMACY OF LEARNING


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PAR 1 HE INIMACY OF LEARN ING

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On a more global scale, this trend has been seen in the creation onew bridges between vocational programmes and higher education,as well as in the division o programmes into modules that can be

offered to students in various configurations. In Quebec’s school sys-tem, or example, this diversiying trend has been seen in the crea-tion o public schools that offer international programmes or com-bine academics with specialties such as sports or music, as well as inthe adaptation o content to reflect local culture and conditions andto reach groups that have little experience with ormal education.

Such initiatives strive to strike a delicate balance between

promoting equality and recognizing dierences. here is alwaysthe risk that equal opportunity will be compromised, and hencesuch programmes are the subject o some debate (Combaz, 1999;Portelance et al., 2006). But recognizing dierences does not meanallowing inequalities in the name o some neo-liberal conceptiono reedom o education (or example, by establishing an elite sys-tem o private schools supported by public unds). Instead, it meansthat the public system recognizes diering ways o achieving thecommon objective o quality education or all.

hus, rom the earliest stage o their ormal education, learnersare now expected to make some choices about the subjects theystudy and the programmes they enrol in. heir educational path-ways are no longer linear and sequential; instead individuals areaorded new opportunities to change direction, to choose a dier-ent route. Hence young people have more and more choices and an

increasing number o decisions to make throughout the early yearso their schooling. hey have more space in which to dierentiateand individualize their trajectories. hey are expected to becomeactors who can make their own choices (Étienne et al., 1992). Butor these individuals to be able to make these choices, certain so-cio-cultural conditions must also be present.

In addition to this individualization o students’ educationalchoices, another, relatively new trend is the individualization o


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pedagogical practices, whereby learners are given personal coach-ing and mentoring, both at school and in the workplace. he goalis to take individual wants and needs into account and to adapt the

pace o learning to the speciic learners and their distinctive back-grounds and experiences. A wider variety o cultural reerents arealso being used (or example, new reerence books that documentcontributions rom diverse backgrounds and traditions), preciselyso that individuals can recognize themselves in their school exer-cises and thus learn rom them in an authentic, meaningul way.Paradoxically, such acknowledgment o dierences may be a way

to promote equal opportunity.his diversi ication and dierentiation o educational pathways,learning environments and ways o learning intensiies through-out learners’ adult lives, leading them to make transitory synthesesrom these various sources o knowledge.

1.1.2 BROADER REDEFINITION OF EDUCATION AND LEARNING

NOW EXTENDED TO PEOPLE’S LIFE COURSE

From this temporal standpoint, the reality o education and learn-ing is no longer limited to the institutionalized, preparatory phase opeople’s lives (in act, it never really was). Even beore school begins,intensive learning occurs in early childhood—a phase o each per-son’s biography that was long poorly understood but that prooundlyinfluences his or her subsequent lie course (see Chapter 10). And the

educational biography naturally continues afer individuals leave theinstitutionalized pathways o school, college and university behind.

Once they have completed what is now deined as their initialeducation, many people continue participating in various types oeducation, but many others cease to do so, in accordance with theirpersonal and social circumstances and the opportunities availableto them (Crossan et al., 2003). And to the extent that these individ-uals want to continue learning and nourishing their curiosity, and,


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o course, have the spaces and resources to do so, these variouslearning experiences throughout their lietimes will enable themto construct increasingly distinctive selves.

Te narrative biographical approach to research on adult learning,which first emerged in the 1980s, is contributing greatly to the redis-covery o the intimacy o learning. In this approach, individuals’ liestories are reconstructed in order to understand how they build andrebuild their identities throughout their lives, and more intensivelyduring major lie transitions (Bertaux, 1980). For instance, PierreDominicé (1990, 2001) has observed the ways that, during such tran-

sitions, individuals succeed or ail in steering a new course, in giv-ing shape to what experience has taught them and to what may makesense or the uture. Lie stories, such as those o women who brokewith the oppressive traditions o 19th century rural society (Englishand Irving, 2012; Zeldin, 1973, 1995) and those o unemployed teen-agers who organize their resistance and thus discover their identities(Alheit, 1994), enable us to understand the complex relationships be-tween the weight o social structures and the relative ability o indi-

viduals to react and to carve out a place or themselves.Such stories show us how and in what contexts these individu-

als position themselves with regard to the ‘potential o their yetunlived lie’ and how they succeed or ail in reconstructing theiridentities by using their personal networks, improvising creatively,or setting a motivating personal project or themselves that keepsthem going (Alheit, 1995, 2005; Pineau, 2000, 2009). We will re-

turn in Chapter 4 to this topic by reerring to what Alheit calls bio- graphicity , a competence required in late modernity and throughthe rediscovery o individual actors in any collective action.

1.1.3 REDISCOVERY OF INFORMAL LEARNING

hroughout their lives, individuals learn in a variety o ways,not only in organized learning situations, but also through all


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kinds o opportunities and by all kinds o methods. Our visiono education and learning is changing. We are rediscoveringthat ormal, credentialing education is only the visible part o

the educational iceberg (Livingstone, 1999, 2012). First observedby Coombs and his team in rural settings (Coombs and Ahmed,1974) and theorized by La Belle (1982), inormal learning has nowbecome an indispensable eature o the educational landscape notonly in the workplace (Marsick et al ., 2009) but in al l areas o ac-tivity (Schugurensky, 2000; Egentenmeyer, 2008). Moreover, even‘ormal’ education always has an inormal dimension. Formality

and inormality are two components that are always present, al-beit in varying degrees, in any educational activity (Billett , 2004;Colley, 2003).

Recognizing this act simply means acknowledging that, besidesparticipating in organized educational activities, the vast majorityo men and women also participate in unstructured learning expe-riences at some time or other in their lives, either intentionally orincidentally. his enhanced recognition o the inormal learningthat people engage in at every age and in every sphere o activityhelps to highlight the individual’s role in determining their edu-cational pathways. It reveals the subjective dimension o learningand education throughout the human liespan. It is also expressedin the recent trend toward recognizing and validating knowledgeand skills acquired outside the ormal school context.

1.1.4 DEMAND FOR RECOGNITION OF EXPERIENCE-BASED LEARNING

Inevitably, the rediscovery o the variety o modes o learning hasled to what is now a typical eature o lielong-learning policy:recognition, validation and accreditation (RVA) o learning romexperience and sel-organized learning. he development and im-plementation o a set o tools or this purpose in various coun-tries (Colardyn, 2000; Conseil Supérieur de l’éducation (Superior


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Council on Education), Quebec, 2000; Andersson and Harris,2006; Livingstone and Myers, 2007) and internationally (UNESCO2010: CONFINEA VI, Belém Framework or Action, 12e) clearly

show how important the recognition o learning done outside ostructured rameworks has become.

his ormal validation o inormal learning and the issuing o‘passports’ enabling individuals to pursue their educational projectrepresent a revealing trend. hey eectively express the emergenceo a broader vision o the reality o lielong learning. he ‘educa-tion’ section o a traditional résumé or curriculum vitae actually

provides a very narrow account o the education and learning thatthe individual has experienced over his or her lietime. In reality,people achieve their education through a wide range o ormativeevents and experiences and thus are now demanding oicial rec-ognition or all o them. More and more educational institutionsnow have policies on recognition o prior learning, and regard-less o how these may vary (Andersson and Harris, 2006). heyacknowledge that every individual, throughout his or her lie his-tory, learns in a variety o ways (McGivney, 1999), including sel-directed learning (Merriam and Bierema, 2013).

1.1.5 THE TREND TOWARD SELF-DIRECTED LEARNING

In the 1970s, reacting against the prevailing ormal educationmodel, researchers began to identiy and codiy the various orms

and practices o what came to be known as sel-directed learning(ough, 1971; Knowles, 1975). Authors such as Brookield (1985),Long (1989), Candy (1991), Carré (1993, 2002), Pineau (2000) andMerriam (2013) developed a body o theory regarding sel-direct-ed learning practices, documented the sel-development plans orprojects that individuals pursue; they examined the conditions thatenable adults to control their own learning. hus, various orms osel-directed learning were identiied and the processes involved in


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it systematized. Some authors represented them with linear models(Knowles, 1975), others with more interactive ones (Brockett andHiemstra, 1991). Authors such as Carré et al. (2002) speciied the

methods and practices used to support sel-directed learners, andideas such as assisted or guided sel-learning (‘accompagnement’)entered the literature.

Philippe Carré (2006) proposes the concept o apprenance (thelearning propensity) to designate the affective, cognitive, and conativedispositions o individuals who are able to learn in more autonomousway. He reers to Bandura’s concept o ‘agency’ and underscores the

role o the sel in strengthening the desire and ability to learn and theknowledge o how to do so, reinorcing ‘le vouloir, pouvoir et savoirapprendre’ (the desire, power and knowledge o how to learn).Other concepts developed by the above authors are highly re-

vealing. hey include sel-determination, sel-regulation, sel-e-ectiveness, accountability, sel-steering, personal initiative, and‘pédagogie du projet’ (project-based pedagogy) (Boutinet, 2005, pp.187). According to these authors, such perspective should make itpossible not to ignore the pedagogical relationships, but to recon-sider the prevailing models.

Unortunately, some o these authors have even gone so ar asto treat sel-learning and ormal education as diametrically op-posed. But the main contribution o recent thinking and discus-sion on sel-directed learning has been to ocus less on how educa-tion is organized and more on how learning is being achieved by

the learners themselves, with, certainly, the oten needed supporto teachers, mentors and acilitating environments (Merriam andBierema, 2013).

his expanded vision o education as extending across one’s en-tire lietime and including inormal learning tends to spotlight theindividualization o educational lie stories. It puts the ocus on thelearners, who continually ace new experiences and new kinds oknowledge that they must integrate, negotiate or reject.


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1.1.6 EMPOWERMENT

his renewed ocus on the ‘actor’ has also been relected in the

emergence o the concept o ‘empowerment’ over the past ew dec-ades. his concept originated, in part, in the women’s social move-ments, which in the 1970s began to make empowerment a crucialunderpinning o their goals and practices. Empowerment meantwomen securing the ability to act autonomously so that they couldexercise control over their own situation, especially in response to

various orms o discrimination, and thus transorm underlying

social relationships.he perspective and approach associated with empowermentare both individual and collective. A good example can be seenin the Arican American eminist movement o the 1980s and1990s (Collins, 2000). In response to sexual discrimination andthe resulting orms o repression that women endured, this move-ment based its programme both on building the capacity or ac-tive resistance in every individual and on horizontally organizingcollective action so as to achieve concrete changes in the imme-diate oppressive situation, to alter women’s living conditions,and to transorm the patriarchal society both structurally andculturally.

his reciprocal relationship between individual emancipationand collective action characterizes this new social movement andcontrasts with the mobilization methods oten used in the past by

historical social movements. Autonomization is not only a meanso taking action but is also one o the objectives o action and whatgives action its meaning (Ninacs, 2003). In such social movements,the process becomes as important as the result. Each individual’s

voluntary participation and personal re-analysis o the issues arepreconditions or eective action, both individual and collective.he resulting solidarity thus goes beyond a mere adhesion to acommon cause.


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hus conceived, empowerment requires all individuals to masterskills, to recognize their own ability to take initiative (a orm osel-esteem), and to develop critical awareness. It involves a orm

o development that is not only social but also deeply personal. heintimacy o learning as a social issue is then implicitly recognized.

Te concept o empowerment has moved beyond eminist circlesand is cited in a variety o discussions on organizational manage-ment, adult education and training, and even on the role o civilsociety in international co-operation. In these contexts, the conceptis ofen revisited and reconstructed rom a more instrumental and

technocratic perspective (Damant, 2001; Fortin-Pellerin, 2006).It is thus important to dierentiate the various understand-ings o the concept o empowerment. he concept as it is used hereunderscores the importance o learners’ involvement in their ownlearning. It reers to the development o individuals’ ability to actindependently in new, less hierarchical organizations (Chaize,1995). It describes the qualities that individuals must have or lo-cal communities to participate actively in development projects(Malhotra, Schuler and Boender, 2005) and pilot their lie course(Le Bossé, 2003). Here the emphasis is placed on individual initia-tive and individual accountability, and, on the capacity or autono-mous action.

In summary, over the past ew decades, visions o educationand learning have been transormed as individuals have increas-ingly come to be seen as agents who can, under certain conditions,

build their own capacity to act individually and collectively so asto change the conditions o their lives.

1.2 A RENEWED VISION OF HUMAN RIGHTS

hese many avenues in which the demand or greater individualautonomy in learning has been recognized no doubt have somerelationship to the emergence o a renewed vision o the right to


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education. his right was irst recognized in Article 26 o theUnited Nations Universal Declaration o Human Rights, in 1948,and in Article 13 o the International Covenant on Economic,Social and Cultural Rights, which was adopted in 1966 and cameinto orce in 1976. his covenant guarantees access to primary andpost-primary education, that is to the level o schooling recognizedas compulsory and universal in each member country and makessuch education reely available to all without discrimination. Butaccording to UNESCO’s 2011 Education or All Global MonitoringReport , some 60 million children are still being denied their right

to education, while some 770 million adults still lack basic literacyskills; the consequences are well known, and they are enormous(Delors, 1996; Schuller et al., 2004). Despite some real progress inthe primary education o children, even as o 2008, over hal o allcountries had not yet realized the key objective o Education or All : ree primary education or all children. As or basic educationor adults, according to UNESCO, the majority o states continueto neglect this undamental right (UNESCO, 2011).

Te right to education o course implies universal access to ormaleducation, but its implications extend much urther. Te right to go toschool also involves what happens there to people who manage to at-tend. It involves education itsel and equal opportunities to truly learn,to take ownership o the knowledge conveyed in school and to embedit into one’s own experience. It includes the right to broaden the rangeo opportunities to express onesel and to take effective action and to

continue to do so throughout one’s lie. It is the right to an educationthat has meaning not only or individuals and or their communities,but also or individuals as members o their communities.

Just as the right to peace means more than just reedom romwar and violence, the right to education means more than justequal access. It also includes the right, as certain learning theo-rists put it, to develop a sense o sel-eicacy (Bandura, 1989), theright to the joy o learning, the right to master new knowledge and


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the right to live in dignity as a homo sapiens sapiens. he right tolearn also includes, or example, the youngest children’s right to anenvironment where people listen to and answer their questions, an

environment that stimulates their intellect at this critical stage otheir development (Bauer, 2007).

Furthermore, once students have completed their initial, com-mon, compulsory education, the right to education is also theirright to choose, negotiate, and steer their own course through the

variety o opportunities oered to them in the higher levels o theeducational system. In the workplace, it is the workers’ right to

continue to develop themselves and to ensure that their personalexperiences and concerns are recognized and taken into accountwhen they participate in ormal education and training.his right to learn, and to truly learn, this right to equality o op-portunities, has another component: the recognition o dierenc-es. It implies more than the absence o discrimination. It demandspositive steps to accommodate the cultural plurality o today’ssocieties and hence the diversity o individual pathways. Equalityand dierence (aylor, 1992) are two complementary requirementso this right. More speciically, the right to education entails notonly the obvious right to textbooks that are ree o racist and sexiststereotypes, but also the right to learn about dierences, the rightto question, and the right to propose and explore inerences dier-ent rom the ones proposed by teachers and textbooks.

Tis multi-acetted right to education cannot be isolated rom

other human rights. People who endure discrimination may have a variety o identities and characteristics, any one o which may makethem targets o rejection and harassment—gender, ethnicity, physi-cal appearance, disabilities, religious belies, economic status, sexualorientation, and so on. Tese vectors combine to constitute the ‘in-tersectionality’ (Crenshaw, 1991) o discrimination, as well as o em-powerment. Tis concept o intersectionality is sometimes limited toits external, organizational dimension—the need or co-operation


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among the government agencies and support networks specializingin each o these vectors o discrimination. But everyone who experi-ences multiple orms o discrimination on a social and personal level

is a unique individual who embodies the various sources o his or herexclusion in a unique configuration. It is this individual who stands atthe point where the various actors that organizations attempt to cor-rect or control intersect. It is also this individual who joins orces withothers to resist, to break ree o this multidimensional discrimination,and to publicly reveal the harassment that he or she has ofen sufferedin private. From this perspective, discrimination in educational set-

tings and the right to education are inseparable rom other humanrights—not only civil, but social, economic, and cultural—each owhich is a condition or reely availing o other human rights.

In this sense, the right to education is undamental in two ways. Itis undamental in and o itsel and is publically recognized as such. Butit is also an ‘enabling right’—a basic prerequisite or the exercise o allother human rights. People’s right to lielong learning means their rightto enhance their ability to act individually and collectively, their right toacquire new ways o seeing their environment so as to understand andalter it, and their right to attain qualifications in order to protect theirright to work. Te undamental nature o the right to learn is eloquentlyexpressed in the ollowing excerpt rom the Declaration o the FourthInternational Conerence on Adult Education (UNESCO, 1985):

Te right to learn is:

– the right to read and write;– the right to question and analyse;– the right to imagine and create;– the right to read one’s own world and to write history; (...)– the right to develop individual and collective skills. (...)I we want the peoples o the world to be sel-sufficient inood production and other essential human needs, theymust have the right to learn.


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I women and men are to enjoy better health, they must havethe right to learn.I we are to avoid war, we must learn to live in peace, and

learn to understand one another.‘Learn’ is the key word.Tere can be no human development without the right to learn.Tere will be no breakthroughs in agriculture and industry(...) without the right to learn.Without this right there will be no improvements in thestandard o living or workers in our cities and villages. (...)

But the right to learn is not only an instrument o economic devel-opment; it must be recognised as one o the undamental rights.he act o learning, lying as it does at the heart o all educationalactivity, changes human beings rom objects at the mercy o eventsto subjects who create their own history.

Some neo-liberal thinkers try to circumscribe rights by hold-ing individuals solely responsible or their own conditions. Rightsand responsibilities are thus treated as conlicting concepts, andthe notion o individual empowerment is distorted into one whereonly the individual is held accountable. But i individuals are tobe accountable or their place in society, then the rights that theyneed to develop so that they can truly participate in it must berecognized (Sen, 2000). Moreover, the call or individual empower-ment and the space that citizens are demanding or this purpose

are more than necessary conditions or true development. hey arealso, as Sen puts it, undamental constituents o its very purpose.Paradoxically, this less individualistic view o human rights leadsdirectly to the recognition o the individual as subject and actor,and thereore o every individual’s right to enhance their inner ca-pacity in order to exercise all other rights, both personally and as amember o a community.


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1.3 CONCLUSION

A variety o studies in a number o countries show that people’s

lie paths are becoming more diverse and more individualized. Asa result, a broader view o education is emerging, one that recog-nizes the various ways that people learn—ways that, depending onpeople’s personal situations, may vary in relative importance overtheir lietimes. hese indings, while recognizing the importanceo teaching and mentoring unctions, compel us to recognize thesel-directed dimension o any sustainable learning. We cannot de-

velop the capacity or individual initiative unless we make spaceor such initiative in the learning process itsel and hence in theappropriation o knowledge.

he recognition o the intimacy o learning and its social impli-cations is a logical extension o this renewed ocus on the learner,but goes two steps urther. First, it means not only recognizing theactive role o learners in any sustainable learning process, but alsodesigning and supporting this educational process so that learnerscan continuously construct their own identities. hus they will beenabled both to express their learning demands and to take own-ership o the knowledge and skills that they acquire and mobilize.None o this will be possible unless current social and educationalconditions are modiied.

Second, in the new contexts in which people live today, learningdoes not mean teaching them to play their roles in predictable situ-

ations. It means that all persons, while acquiring necessary knowl-edge and skills, must also continuously strengthen their reedom oindividual and collective action. his ability has become essentialin today’s society, where risks and uncertainties abound, where thesettings in which people live and work are being rapidly renewedand transormed, where cultural diversity characterizes our dailyenvironment and where the threat o diminished public servicesbecomes ever present.


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But these observations raise many other questions. What is actu-ally being done today to take this intimate dimension o learninginto account in work-related education and training, in education-

al institutions, and in other educational settings? In what way isthe recognition o the intimacy o learning transorming the socialdemand or education? How is this demand being expressed in theworld o work, and in the ields o health, literacy and popular edu-cation? From this standpoint, how should educational policies andpractices concerning early childhood education and education oolder adults be interpreted?

Beore examining these various issues and explore their con-crete implications (see Part 2), we must irst address in Chapters 2,3, and 4 certain undamental questions. How can we recognize andanalyze the intimate dimension o the act o learning? What aboutormal knowledge, the acquisition o proven modes o action, theappropriation o the universal heritage o humanity and the intel-lectual methods needed to renew it continuously? How do learningtheories deal with this dimension? What are the relationships be-tween individuals’ autonomy and their participation in the collec-tive, between the intimate and the social aspects o education andlearning? Can a person’s quest or autonomy be individual withoutalso being collective (Newman, 2012) and vice versa? How can thisnew ocus on the intimacy o learning be explained sociologically?And lastly (see Part 3), which policies and programmes could beintroduced or reinorced in order to ully recognize the intimacy

o learning and thus strengthen in a diuse way the individual andcollective creativity o citizens in late modernity?


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Developing individuals’ autonomy and increasing their ability totake initiative are more than just conditions or learning: they arecentral to the learning process and among its undamental pur-poses. But what about the undamental need to learn about thecultural heritage o humanity? Or the need to continue developingthe skills and knowledge required or one’s work? Or irst o all, theneed to stir and nourish one’s intellectual curiosity?

here is sometimes a tendency to treat constructing the sel andmastering knowledge as two con licting goals, but this oppositionis actually alse, or rather, incorrectly ramed. Whatever renewedemphasis we may place on the intimacy o learning, we cannot dis-guise its cognitive dimension, which is just as necessary or devel-oping individuals’ autonomy. Conversely, learning does not mean

simply receiving and understanding transmitted knowledge; italso means mobilizing the inner resources o individuals who arein the process o constructing their selves.

Beore we examine these two dimensions o learning, we need abetter understanding o its subjective aspect. Sometimes ignored,sometimes gloriied, this aspect o the educational interaction hasbeen analyzed in various ways and thus been assigned various,sometimes contradictory meanings.

CHAPTER 2CONSTRUCTING THE SELF AND

MASTERING KNOWLEDGE:TWO POLES OF THE EDUCATIONALDIALECTIC


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PAR 1 CONSRUCING HE SELF AND MASERING KNOWLEDGE

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2.1 VARIOUS EXPLORATIONS OFTHE INTIMACY OF LEARNING

2.1.1 EMOTIONAL VERSUS RATIONAL INTELLIGENCE

Despite the anecdotal nature o Goleman’s book on emotional in-telligence (1996), its success does relect a new trend in the worldo education. In the past, educators tended to talk about emotionsonly when stressing the need or learners to control their eelingsand their non-rational behaviours. oday, space is being demanded

or the expression o emotions, which have acquired a positive con-notation. In advanced modern societies, the ability to mobilize andmanage one’s internal emotional energy has become an asset: whatNeckel (2005) calls ‘emotion by design’.

Emotions such as ear, anger, sadness, and pleasure are universal.Tey are conveyed by the similar acial expressions in all cultures.Emotions are also an integral part o the things that people learn,and the rustrations that they experience when they ail to learn.For example, i we do not consider people’s emotional lives, how canwe understand a phenomenon such as ego resiliency (Block, citedby Goleman, 1996), which enables learners to cope with the initialconusion and lack o understanding that initially characterize mostnew cognitive experience? Te slow process by which learners buildtheir sel-confidence is critical or successully managing the anxi-ety that comes with acing questions to which they do not yet know

the answers or which challenge their current vision.Braving the voyage into the unknown is one o the ways that peo-

ple learn and acquire knowledge, but lack o sel-confidence under-mines their ability to learn. It makes them hesitate to take new risks,earing the uncertainty caused by cognitive dissonance and by newknowledge and new perspectives that call their old habits, belies andtraditions into question (Arnold and Holzapel, 2008). Without sel-confidence, people tend to all back into their routine, ‘a normality


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that becomes normative’ (Bourgeault, 2003, p.96; author’s translation).But on a more positive note, no one is ever completely passive orcompletely incapable o looking back and examining his or her past

experiences. he gradual development o a personal identity, in-cluding sel-esteem, is also a matter o emotions, as well as chang-ing the social networks to which one belongs or making them morediversiied (Field and Malcolm, 2006). Empathy is a necessary skillor learning rom other people, or understanding their eelingsand perspectives rom the inside, and or learning through dia-logue and conversation (Zeldin, 1998).

But emotional intelligence is not the only dimension o the inti-macy o learning. Rational intelligence, too, emerges only gradually,as individuals acquire more experience with deductive and induc-tive reasoning and gradually develop and organize a more complexbody o knowledge in their long-term memory. Individuals’ abil-ity to analyze and judge depends on the knowledge that they havegrasped and on the reerence schemas they have developed, as wellas on the experience that they have acquired in exercising theircritical aculties.

Mastering knowledge also means organizing it in one’s headand relating it to other knowledge that is already there, so that onecan then bring it to bear on something or mobilize it at the appro-priate time. Learning means, or example, mastering the logic osyllogism so that one can then use it and also detect sophisms. hearchitecture o memory is an intimate reality that every individual

must gradually construct, just like the capacity or rational analy-sis. Like emotional processes, these cognitive processes are also anintegral part o constructing the sel and developing the ability toact autonomously.

he polarization between emotion and cognition that so longtended to characterize our view o learning and education no long-er holds true (Umbriaco et al., 2001). he relationships betweenthe two have a reciprocal instrumental component. Individuals


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can use their reason to control their emotions; at the same time,their ability to participate actively in a learning process will benon-existent, or at least severely compromised, i they are not emo-

tionally involved.In this last regard, we should also note an equally reciprocal rela-

tionship between extrinsic and intrinsic motivations. Individuals aremotivated by the extrinsic, social demand to learn only when theysee it as making sense and embrace it personally. Conversely, the in-trinsic, subjective motivation to learn does not arise out o nowhere.It is also ed by the social needs that the individual experiences. Even

when the purpose o learning is extrinsic—to socialize children, orexample, or to meet new requirements at the workplace—it does notlose its intimate dimension. On the contrary, it requires this dimen-sion in order or such learning to be significant and relevant.

Motivation and emotion can also be learned. he goal o someeducational and even some cultural programmes is precisely tooptimize emotional experiences and enhance individual initiative.Emotion is not just an internal disturbance to be controlled. It isalso an energy that needs to be awakened, a orce that needs to bedeveloped. Believing that one can learn and having the courage to

venture into the unknown are also matters o emotion and subjectso learning (Neckel, 2005). he joy o learning is something thatcan be nurtured and developed. he more gratiying and relevantmy learning process is, the more motivated I am to learn. And themore motivated I become, the more I will continue to learn and

the more I will cultivate the desire to do so. Lielong learning ispractically impossible i I experience it only as a necessary burden.

he internal resources that drive learners to act are not prede-termined or once and or all, except in the case o serious disabili-ties that aect less than 5 per cent o the population. Autonomy,a major objective o education, requires individuals to continuebuilding their inner strengths. Neither the individual’s ability tolearn and to act nor the individual’s identity are set in stone by any


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kind o quotient. he ability to satisy one’s curiosity, to graduallyorganize one’s internal knowledge architecture, to set goals, and totake steps to reach them is a skill that people master gradually over

the course o their lietime. But they still need to be given avour-able conditions and the environment or such learning processes,and both they and the people who teach and coach them must begiven the right tools and methods or the job. In Chapter 10, wewill talk more about required policies, practices, and systems, andon the educational impact o the environments in which peopleoperate; will operate; or can and do decide to operate.

Symbolic violence and educational misery

he intimate side o learning can also be seen in the sueringthat children eel when they ail at school—a traumatic experi-ence that can ollow them and even torment them or the rest otheir lives. Bourdieu and Passeron (1970) have done a ine analy-sis o the general mechanisms o symbolic violence. he repro-duction o inequalities produced by school is arbitrarily legiti-mized and thus rendered acceptable both to the victims and tosociety only to the extent that dierences in success at school arereinterpreted as the result o a natural distr ibution o individual‘gits’. In this way, inequalities in education are disguised, justi-ied, and legitimized, and can hence be perpetuated without dis-turbing the social peace.

But we cannot grasp the ull meaning and impact o ailure at

school unless we irst analyze the internalization that makes it ac-ceptable and the arbitrary, subjective way in which it is interpreted.he meaning that individuals ascribe to the experience o beingpersonally regarded as the main reason or their own ailure willstrongly inluence their uture. his organized alienation, this in-ternalized social construct, this cultural iat, will weigh heavilyon the rest o their lives—not just their educational lives, but theirwork and social lives as well.


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Indeed, one cannot really understand the social signiicance othis symbolic violence and the mechanisms by which it works un-less one considers its intimate, personal dimension. he current

sociology o education partially recognizes this reality by invokingthe concept o ‘cultural dispositions’. his analysis does identiythe actor at play, but ignores the process that creates this negativesubjective perception and subtly undermines the learner’s sel-es-teem. A closer examination o this phenomenon is important, be-cause with certain kinds o support and the presence o ‘signiicantothers’ (Cheng and Starks, 2002), students can resist this arbitrary

socialization and successully alter these learned cultural disposi-tions. his emotional and cognitive construction and deconstruc-tion o the individual lie at the heart o learning and educationallie, and an analysis o these processes is essential to ensure the ullright to education (see Chapter 1).

here are many examples o this symbolic violence in edu-cation. oo many children are quietly stiled, stymied in theirdevelopment by systematic indierence and the repeated reusalto hear and answer their persistent questions. Some students arecondemned to spend every day in educational settings that aredry and boring—a situation too oten ignored. Employees suerin silent rustration as their employers orce them into trainingthat takes neither their expectations nor their experience into ac-count. In various educational settings where harassment and bul-lying are tolerated, their victims become gradually isolated and

deeated by the psychological blows that they constantly absorb.As the women’s movement has so oten shown, raising awarenessabout the various orms o psychological violence that are expe-rienced in private and publicly exposing them can make all thedierence.

Paradoxically, it is oten through examples o people whoseeducational paths have been thus blocked, and who have sueredsuch hidden misery as a result, possibly repressing it into their


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subconscious, that we discover the intimacy o the educational liecourse and the social issue that it represents both or individualsand or society. We will return to this subject in Chapter 9.

2.2 THEORIES OF LEARNING ANDTHE INTIMACY OF LEARNING

It will now be instructive to examine how the various schools o learn-ing theory deal with the intimacy o learning (Bélanger, 2011).

Obviously, behaviourist theories must be treated as a separate

category, since their assumptions preclude any analysis o the inti-mate dimension o learning. he behaviourists’ positivist perspec-tive led them to consider only that which they regarded as empiri-cally observable. According to their theory o operant conditioning ,by responding to a repeated stimulus that promises a reward, in-dividuals eventually adopt an expected behaviour; they learn.Reacting to the then-prevailing tendency to reject any scientiicempirical analysis o education, the behaviourists embraced objec-tivity and empiricism so radically that they excluded rom theiranalysis anything that they could not observe and prove rom theoutside. hey reused to acknowledge any reality that was hard toobserve with the naked eye, and thereore consigned all internalprocesses into a metaphorical ‘black box’. his epistemological de-cision led the behaviourists to ignore the subjective but nonethelessreal dimension o learning. hey thus overlooked that individuals

can also react rom the inside and that, under certain conditions,they can mobilize themselves or resist subjectively. heir acquiredknowledge and their thoughts about their past experiences maymake them curious and inclined to respond to external stimuli, orconversely, may make them hesitate to try new experiences, or setconditions or doing so. Learners are not just laboratory animalswith simple relexes. hey are strong, thinking beings, with theirown personal, intellectual, and experiential baggage.


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he behaviourists do observe that an individual can delay his orher response to an immediate stimulus to obtain greater gratiica-tion later on. But they say nothing about how the personal capacity

to react in this way develops. I individuals can resist a stimulus insuch an autonomous way, it is because, through their lie experi-ence, they have a conception o sel, and even more importantly, oother possible selves, that leads them to interpret the demands otheir environment in dierent ways (Markus and Nurius, 1986).Yet, with behaviorists, especially with Skinner (1969, 1977), wehave learned through their scientiic posture, the importance o

the environment to stimulate or anaesthetize people’s curiosity.Without stimuli, without support rom the environment, subjectscannot construct themselves intellectually and emotionally. Wewill return to this issue in Chapter 10 (10.3).

he two other major schools o learning theory—cognitivistand constructivist or social constructivist—have attempted to un-derstand the learning process rom the inside, by ocusing theiranalysis not on the environment and its conditioning eects, butrather on the individuals in their learning context.

he cognitivists (Bruner, 1996; Gagné, 1985; ardi, 1999) at-tempt to explain how people record, select, process, organize, andencode various orms o knowledge and store it in memory, so thatthey can retrieve and act on it later. he interiority o this processis thus explicitly recognized, as is the learner as an active agentwho is mastering and mobilizing knowledge and skills. he cog-

nitivists observe and analyze what is going on in the heads o anindividual while he or she is acquiring skil ls and knowledge. heydescribe the mechanisms and processes by which learners succeedin mastering objective knowledge and developing an active per-sonal culture (literary, historical technical, etc.). hey observe andpropose the best strategies or teaching such knowledge eectively.What is more, the cognitivists use the concept o meta-knowledgeto underscore the individual’s relexive ability—the ability to learn


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how to learn—and hence his or her potential reedom o intellec-tual action. While theorizing about the mental activities o receiv-ing, reorganizing, and transerring knowledge and skills—in other

words, while articulating the abstract and concrete dimensions olearning—the cognitivists do, however, tend to limit people’s edu-cational lives to this cognitive dimension alone.

Like the cognitivists, the constructivists shif the ocus back ontothe learner and recognize the inner dimension o educational lie. Inact, they go even urther, unortunately ofen neglecting the cogni-tive dimension o learning in such a process. Tese theorists con-

ceive o learning as the gradual construction o the learner himselor hersel. Step by step, but always within a ‘zone o proximal devel-opment’ (Vygotsky, 1986) to make the challenge achievable, learn-ers develop their capacity or independent thought and action. Teybuild a body o knowledge that they can then mobilize or action.

he social constructivists adopt this same analytical approach,but also place learners back in their social context. For example,Lave (1988) and Wenger (1998) do so by examining traditionalorms o trade apprenticeship rom an anthropological standpointso as to better understand how learners build their skills. heseauthors study how apprentices are trained in tailors’ shops and intraditional Arican markets, how the midwie’s proession is trans-mitted rom mother to daughter in Mayan communities o theYucatan, and how butcher’s apprentices are trained in supermar-kets. In this way, the authors rediscover the processes o ‘situated

cognition’ and, then, critically review more ormal learning proc-esses in light o these indings.

Lave and Wenger (1991) thus come to redefine learning and educa-tion as an action taken by the learner—a gradual, decreasingly periph-eral, increasingly intensive and complex participation in a communityo practice. Te apprentices whom the authors studied in Arican tai-lor shops gradually assume a larger role as they master various tasksin turn, rom the easier to the more difficult. Troughout this process,


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the apprentices must apply in their practices not only skills, but alsoknowledge (cognitive resources) and a proessional interest in andcuriosity about their field (conative resources). Tey come to share a

passion or their trade so that they ultimately truly identiy with it.Observing butcher’s apprentices in supermarkets, Lave and Wengersee their theory demonstrated, this time, by a case o the opposite:the journeymen butchers keep the more skilled tasks or themselves,while allowing the apprentices only to stock meat on the shelves, sothat they cannot develop the complex knowledge and skills o thetrade and gradually come to identiy with it.

Lave (1991) then theoretically reconstructs the apprenticeshiplearning process as one in which observing, receiving instruction,attempting tasks under supervision, having one’s errors corrected,and gradually identiying with the trade and its members, are allso intermingled that in this practice setting, it is no longer possibleto distinguish what is ormal, non-ormal, and inormal education.

hus, or Lave and the social constructivists, the learning proc-ess is characterized irst and oremost by individuals’ increasinglycompetent participation in their community o practice and theirgradually increasing ability to act independently. For Lave, learn-ing is a social process through which learners, situated in contextsappropriate or the purpose, gradually construct themselves.

In a sense, Lave (1991) is simply bringing us back to the basic his-tory o education that began long beore the institution o ormalschooling. Since the dawn o human time, people have been acquir-

ing, accumulating and transerring knowledge and skills. Both curi-osity and necessity have always driven people to learn continuously.Te new development—one or two centuries ago or less, dependingon the country—was the universalization and institutionalization othe work o education. And paradoxically, the new development todayis the renewed societal recognition o the inormal modes o learningthat, since the 19th century, had become a orgotten i not hidden parto the educational scene. In this book, we shall see how, in pursuing


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their educational pathways, individuals combine these three dimen-sions o education—ormal, non-ormal, and inormal.

However, in their insistence on demonstrating the construction

o the sel as a central activity o learning, the constructivists andsocial constructivists unortunately tend to underestimate the di-rect cognitive process, the acquisition and transer o knowledge,which are key elements in the development o individual autono-my, especially in today’s knowledge-intensive society.

Most o the more recent analyses and essays on adult learningtend to be developed within the constructivist/sel-constructivist

ramework (Illeris, 2009; usting and Barton, 2006; Merriam andCaarella, 1999). he andragogy theorists (Knowles, 1990, 1989,1980; Jarvis 1987b; Kidd, 1978), whose ideas predominated in the1970s and 1980s, stressed experience as a speciic component oadult learning and an important reerence base or any learning ac-tivity. According to Knowles (1980), or example, in order to learn,adults need to know how and why they are going to engage in thelearning process; their increasingly reined sel-concept thus ena-bles them to be sel-directed learners.

During the same period, Kolb (1984) and Schön (1983) developedtheir theory o experiential learning , in which they demonstrate thecentral role that past experiences and sel-analysis play in people’seducational lives. Te learning cycle begins with an experience,which the learner transorms by reflecting about it; this leads to ac-quisition o new concepts and knowledge that the learner must test

and apply in order to assimilate them (MacKeracher, 2004). Learningis thus seen as a process in which reflection and action are constantlycombined in various ways (Jarvis, 1987a).

Lielong learning has also been examined rom another entirelydierent perspective: that o the neurosciences and their contribu-tion to the study o learning (OECD-CERI, 2007). In attemptingto understand the neurological bases o human thought, memo-ry, emotions, and planning o complex actions, neurobiology is


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shedding new light on the development o the brain and its unc-tioning at various stages o people’s educational biographies (Ward,2006). Consider, or example, research on the role o neurotrans-

mitting chemicals such as dopamine which, by sending a signal inanticipation o an enjoyable experience, stimulate the individualand move him or her to action (Bauer, 2007). hus, as individualsacquire memories o gratiying learning experiences, these memo-ries increase their enjoyment o learning and strengthen their con-idence in their ability to learn.

Sometime earlier, education specialists had already pointed out

that the highlights o people’s educational biographies—the mo-ments o ecstasy, o experienced pleasures—create and nurturetheir lust or learning, their educational libidos (Leonard, 1968).What these theorists did not know about at the time was the bio-logical processes involved and, more generally, the cognitive healthactors, meaning the conditions or the development o individu-als’ neuro-capability and, conversely, or neurodegenerative dis-eases such as Alzheimer’s. Relevant to our earlier discussion aboutemotion and cognition, other neuroscientiic studies have showna connection between the neural networks associated with per-ceiving and expressing emotions and those where reasoning takesplace (Ledoux, 1998; Damasio, 1999; Umbriaco, 2001).

2.3 THE LEARNING DIALECTIC

2.3.1 TWO OBSERVATIONS AND A NEW SET OF QUESTIONS

In light o the preceding necessarily brie review o the literature onlearning theories, two observations must be made, and a new set oquestions arises. First, the prevailing trend is to reocus the analysison the learner in order to better understand the learning process.Te door is thus opened to considering the interiority and subjectiv-ity o learning processes. Second—and this is the contribution o


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social constructivism—learning is seen as the gradual constructiono the sel by the learner, who mobilizes various internal and exter-nal resources or this purpose. When the path to constructing the

sel is blocked, the learner experiences the pain o being denied theopportunity to develop to his or her ull potential. But this experi-ence can also cause the learner to react by resisting, by reusing tointernalize this denial o his or her personal capabilities.

However, these learner-centered perspectives requently under-estimate the central role that the cognitive imperative plays in anylearning process. In paying greater attention to the interiority and

subjectivity o learning and the individuality o every learner, thisperspective oten treats the aective and cognitive components oany learning process as i they were in opposition.

Some other analyses recognize the aective component only asan external precondition or the learning process itsel—nothingmore than a willingness or predisposition to learn. hey analyzemotivation as an independent variable external to the cognitiveact o learning. O course, as noted earlier, individuals have to bemotivated in order to learn. But motivation, initiative, and accept-ance o responsibility are more than mere preconditions: they arethemselves eatures to be learned. his can be seen in the develop-ment o the zest or learning, in the crucial role o curiosity, in thelearning o empathy, in the orming o identity, and in the key roleo past experiences and relective sel-analysis – a process that issometimes emotionally diicult but is also necessary to transorm

experiences into learning. In any learning activity, cognitive andaective processes continuously interact.

he idea that the cognitivist and social constructivist theorieso learning necessarily conlict is then outdated. I we continue totreat these two perspectives as diametrically opposed and henceto isolate them rom each other, we risk oversimpliying reality– either by recognizing only the rational, cognitive dimension olearning or by ailing to connect the endogenous dynamics o any


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learning process with the cognitive imperative that the social part-ners in learning must satisy, that is, that the learners need to mas-ter required knowledge and educators need to develop pedagogical

and andragogical approaches to acilitate such learning. We thusprevent ourselves rom seeing the ongoing dialectical and creativetension between the acquisition o knowledge and skills and theconstruction o the sel.

ranscending the oten acrimonious debate between cognitiv-ists and social constructivists, Bandura (1989, 1990; Zimmerman,Bandura, and Martinez-Pons, 1992), who may be described as a

social cognitivist, clearly shows that introducing the emotionalaspect into an analysis o learning does not mean ignoring its ra-tionality or neglecting the acquisition o knowledge. On the con-trary, it shows how important it is or learners to develop non-cognitive skills, such as sel-esteem, so that they can mobilizetheir inner resources to acquire and master knowledge, or to de-

velop their curiosity, so that they can draw new connections intheir memory between concepts that they have learned separately.Dierentiating his own stance rom what he calls austere cogni-tivism, Bandura (1990) underscores the importance o the senseo sel-eicacy which, once incorporated by individuals into theirexperience and expertise using sel-relection (metacognition),gives them sel-conidence and strengthens their sel-esteem.Wenden (1991), who studied this dimension in second-languagelearning, remarked that it is by relecting on their own successes

and di iculties that individuals become autonomous learners andthat, as ennant (2012) explains, they know and control them-selves. Indeed, it is by looking back at their perceptions o realityand their day-to-day discoveries, by relecting on the experienceo learning—in short, through metacognition—that individualsconstruct themselves. And through this gradual process o sel-construction, individuals become increasingly capable o steeringtheir own course through lie. But throughout their lives, as we


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shall note again, they must enjoy the conditions needed to go ondoing so.

Successul learning experiences and sequences produce the

inner energy needed to overcome uture challenges. Bandura ex-plains the act o learning by ocusing on the learner’s awarenesso what is going on and his or her internal predilections or inhibi-tions with regard to certain content. Learners’ sel-evaluation otheir past educational experiences produces a psychic eect that,in turn, in luences the continuing pursuit o their educational liecourse (Zimmerman, Bandura and Martinez-Pons, 1992).

2.3.2 A DIALECTICAL ANALYSIS

It is precisely the reusal to engage in a dialectical analysis thatcauses problems on both sides o the debate. In describing learn-ing processes and educational pathways, there has been too mucho a tendency to ignore the intimacy o learning. But that does notmean that the remedy is to ocus solely on the subjective dimen-sion and the construction o the sel while neglecting the otherside o the equation: constituted knowledge, rational process, andreason.

he critique o the one-way transmission o knowledge leads usnot to deny knowledge, but to grasp how important it is or learn-ers to integrate what they learn and mobilize it in action. he proc-ess o constructing the sel requires the personal appropriation o

transerred knowledge. he process o integrating a new pieceo knowledge raises questions about the learner’s cognitive con-structs, which are always transitory, and orces the learner to de-

velop a new synthesis which is bound to be transitory (Lengrand,1994). However important experiential learning may be, the tacitknowledge that it produces must be rendered explicit beore it canbe related to previously acquired knowledge and passed on to otherpeople (Polanyi, 1983).


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Learning is a continuous, dynamic process, in creative tension be-tween the need or interiority and the objective necessity o con-stituted knowledge that is itsel constantly evolving. Beore Lave,

Vygotsky (1985) had already recognized this dialectic. Presentedwith new schemas or interpreting reality, individuals attempt tocapture them in their own words so as to assess their relevanceand value. Learners then have to discard some aspects o their al-ready acquired body o knowledge, retain others, take the newlylearned propositions into account, and reorganize and re-encodeall o this inormation—in short, develop a new synthesis o all

their knowledge o the subject at hand. And this synthesis will beequally transitory, called into question by the learner’s next ex-perience o cognitive dissonance. We thus recognize not only thesingularity o educational pathways, but also the various styles olearning (concrete experience, relective observation, abstract con-ceptualization, active experimentation) that every individual re-invents in his or her own way (He ler, 2001).

Learning is an iterative, internal process o questioning and sel-reorganization. When individuals are tempted to recoil rom thetension between their current ways o doing things and the riskso the unknown, between their previously acquired knowledge andtheir new knowledge, they are actually in a unique position to learn(Jarvis, 1987a) and thus to continue constructing themselves. In thisregard, Lave (1988) speaks o the dialectical nature o the learningactivities o the individual who, in his or her lie context, is always

caught between the need to meet the new demands o the situation(to ‘close the gap’) and the need to make sense o these changes.

From the same perspective, Carl Rogers (1983), through his con-cept o significant learning , has shown that learning is real and last-ing only when the learner finds a subjective significance in it and cannot only draw connections between the unknown and the known,but also find elements in it that pique his or her curiosity, or whenhe or she perceives a necessity or relevance in this learning. In short,


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to use Lave’s terminology, only when the learner finds that it has ause value or at the very least an exchange value will the learning beretained. Rogers then stresses the importance o analyzing the act

o learning rom the standpoint o learners’ sel-actualization andsel-regulation o their personal development, and hence o extend-ing the analysis across their entire lietimes. Like Bandura, Rogersstresses that how people learn is just as important as what they learn,because it is through this process that people develop their ability tolearn and their thirst or learning.

2.3.3 A BRIEF PHILOSOPHICAL DIGRESSION

his dialectical view o learning, ocused on the tension betweensubjective experience and the acquisition o constituted knowledge,has been echoed and explicated by certain philosophers o educa-tion who are concerned with individuals’ autonomy and ownershipo their actions, including the act o learning.

For Nietzsche (Cooper, 1983), as or Peters (1973) and Callan(1994), one o the major objectives o education is to strengthen theSel, to construct one’s identity, to develop a reflective personality—in short, to achieve individual autonomy. Tis is not a matter o in-dividualism, but rather o individuality (Piotte, 2001), o the condi-tions or non-alienation and authentic citizenship. With the deatho the gods, as Nietzsche put it, society and individuals must rely onthemselves. Te individual’s capacity or sel-determination is real,

even i his or her choices are ofen limited. Peters (1973) identifiesthree components o the individual’s capacity or sel-determina-tion: ownership o his actions and o his education, rational reflection and strength o will . Tus both the conative and the cognitive com-ponents o the learner’s autonomy are constructed. Experiencingthe joy to learn creates an inner desire to go on learning; throughongoing evaluation o his own perormance, the reflexive learner in-creases his capacity or sel-learning (Benson, 1997).


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Personal commitments, writes Callan (1994), are authentic only tothe extent that they are both passionate and re lective. Autonomyis made up o both passion and reason. o be considered au-

tonomous, it is not enough or an action to express the actor; itmust also be rationally controlled by the actor (Frankena, 1973).he development o critical thinking and rational analysis is justas important as the strengthening o sel-esteem (Callan, 1994).Reerring to Nietzsche, Cooper (1983) explains that it is only whenour passions are inormed by rational appreciation o their objects,and when rational pursuits are ired by passions or truth and clar-

ity that either emotional or intellectual ulillment is easible.From this perspective, authenticity and autonomy cannot betaught and cannot be imposed; they can only be stimulated (Peters,1973). We can create the space or the environment that lets indi-

viduals discover them, experiment with them, and ultimate makethem lie goals. Although the achievement o the goals o auton-omy and sel-rule are circumscribed by the social structure thatlimits choices (Callan, 1994), these restrictive conditions can bealtered through collective action and solidarity. It is in the settingo lie in society, with all its contradictions, that the individualquest or autonomy is carried out. he Sel is never constructed orreconstructed in isolation. As Callan (1994) puts it, the Sel ‘is aship always repaired at sea’ (p. 36).

2.4 CONCLUSION

Our task in this chapter has been to reinstate the intimacy o learn-ing into the immediate educational dialectic so that we can con-sider learning in all its complexity, and the dual, subjective andrational, dimension o the learner’s construction o the sel.

he need or learners to come to grips with the universal herit-age o cultures, with scientiic thought and knowledge, and withthe skills speciic to their chosen proessions and social activity


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does not conlict with recognition o the intimacy o learning. Onthe contrary, such a recognition enables learners to take owner-ship o new knowledge. Likewise, the development o an individ-

ual’s autonomy does not conlict with that individual’s mastery oknowledge and skills, but rather requires it. Knowledge is a strate-gic asset, but individuals must still integrate it in order to increasewhat Paul Ricoeur (1978) calls the personal capacity to act.

he intimacy o learning is cognitive and aective, rational andsubjective. his dialectic is intrinsic to any learning process. Butthere is another dialectic that creates a constant tension between

the individual’s demand to construct the sel and educational de-mands rom society in general and work environments. he act olearning is both intimate and social.

he recognition o the intimacy o learning is not only or evenprimarily pedagogical. It is part o the

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Self Construction and Social Transformation