Biographically oriented cooperative inquiry: a shift to complexity in theories of learning
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31892/rbpab2525-426X.2018.v3.n9.p829-845Keywords:
(Auto)biography. Complexity. Emergence. Interactions. Cooperative inquiry.Abstract
The author reflects on the power of biographical methods in recomposing the dichotomies that dominate the mainstream of education and research – theory/practice, research/education, body/mind, individual/collective, and so on. Dominant theories of learning are focused on the single rational individual, acting based on conscious purpose, while democratic and social change is undervalued in favour of neoliberal goals. The problems created by this hegemonic western epistemology can be healed by thinking in terms of stories, as suggested by systems’ theorist Gregory Bateson. An epistemological shift is then needed, in the light of complexity theories, and their concepts of self-organisation, emergence, and embodied cognition. Self-narratives illuminate more than individual lives, to sustain a complex view of learning as the emergent feature of entangled interactions, at different levels: micro, meso, and macro – that is, individual, interactional, and social. Adult education needs methods to overcome the dominant view and re-establish its fundamental role in granting social justice and peaceful co-existence. Biographically oriented cooperative inquiry is presented as such a method, dialogically working on contents and processes to build liveable knowledge based on human embodied and shared experience and able to foster systemic change through deliberate action.
Downloads
References
ALHADEFF-JONES, M. Challenging the limits of critique in education through Morin's paradigm of complexity. Studies in Philosophy and Education, 29, 5, pp. 477-490, 2010.
ALHADEFF-JONES, M. Transformative learning and the challenges of complexity. In TAYLOR, E.; CRANTON, P. et alii. The Handbook of Transformative Learning: Theory, research, and practice. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, pp. 178-194, 2012.
ALHEIT, P. Lifelong learning and social capital. In EVANS, R. (ed.). Local Development, Community and Adult Learning: Learning landscapes between the mainstream and the margins. Vol. II, Magdeburg: Otto von Guericke University, pp. 27-48, 2009.
ALHEIT, P. Biographical learning: reflections on transitional learning processes in late modern societies. Culture, Biography, and Lifelong Learning, 1, 1, pp. 19-29, 2015.
ALHEIT, P.; DAUSIEN, B. ‘Biographicity’ as a basic resource of lifelong learning. In ALHEIT, P. et alii. Lifelong Learning Inside and Outside Schools. Vol. 2, Roskilde: Roskilde University, pp. 400-422, 2000.
ALHEIT, P.; DAUSIEN, B. Lifelong learning and biography: A competitive dynamic between the macro and the micro-level of education. In WEST, L. et alii (Eds.). Using Biographical and Life History Approaches in the Study of Adult and Lifelong Learning: European Perspectives. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, pp. 57-70, 2007.
BATESON, G. Steps to an Ecology of Mind. New York: Ballantine Books, 1972.
BATESON, G. Mind and Nature. A Necessary Unity. New York: Bantam Books, 1979.
BELENKY, M; STANTON, M. Inequality, development, and connected knowing. In MEZIROW, J. et alii. Learning as Transformation: critical perspectives on a theory in progress. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, pp. 71-102, 2000.
BIESTA, G. Beyond Learning: Democratic education for a human future. Boulder: Paradigm Publishers, 2006.
BOHLINGER, S. et alii (eds.). Working and Learning in Times of Uncertainty : challenges to adult, professional and vocational education. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers, 2015.
DAVIS, B., SUMARA, D. Complexity as a theory of education. Transnational Curriculum Inquiry, 5, 2, 2008.
DELORY-MOMBERGER, C. La condition biographique: Essais sur le récit de soi dans la modernité avancée. Paris: Tétraèdre, 2009.
DELORY-MOMBERGER, C. Biographization, narrative and biographic society Culture, Biography, and Lifelong Learning, 1, 1, pp. 31-40, 2015.
DOMINICÉ, P.. Learning from our lives. San Francisco: Jossey Bass, 2000.
EDWARDS, R.; BIESTA, G.; THORPE, M. Rethinking contexts for learning and teaching: Communities, activities, and networks. London: Routledge, 2009.
EPSON, D.; WHITE, M. Narrative means to therapeutic ends. New York: Norton, 1990.
ESSOGLOU, T.A. The Dialogics of Negation: Gender and Subjectivity. Paulo Freire Symposium on Cultural Politics and Critical Pedagogy, New School for Social Research, New York, 1991.
FENWICK, T.; EDWARDS, R. Performative Ontologies: Sociomaterial approaches to researching adult education and lifelong learning. RELA European Journal for Research on the Education and Learning of Adults, 4, 1, pp. 49-63, 2013.
FOERSTER, H. von. (1973) On Constructing a Reality. Re-published in WATZLAWICK, P. (ed.) (1984). The Invented Reality: How do we know what we believe we know? (Contributions to Constructivism). New York: W.W. Norton & C., pp. 41-61, 1984.
FOERSTER, H. von. Understanding Understanding: Essays on Cybernetics and Cognition. New York: Springer, 1993.
FORMENTI, L. La com-position dans/de l’autobiographie. Pratiques de formation/Analyse 55, pp. 171-191, 2008.
FORMENTI, L. Metaphors, stories and the making of a satisfying theory: Transformational learning for professionals in education. Transformative Learning in Time of Crisis: Individual and Collective Challenges. IX International Conference on Transformative Learning, Athens, Greece, May, 28–29, 2011a.
FORMENTI, L. Families in a changing society: How biographies inspire education. In HERZBERG, H.; KAMMLER, E. (eds.) Biographie und Gesellschaft. Überlegungen zu einer Theorie des modernen Selbst. Frankfurt/New York: Campus, pp. 215-227, 2011b.
FORMENTI, L. The myth of birth: Autobiography and family memory. In FORMENTI, L.; WEST, L.; HORSDAL, M. (eds.) Embodied Narratives: Connecting stories, bodies, cultures and ecologies. Odense: University Press of Southern Denmark, pp. 129-148, 2014.
FORMENTI, L. Learning to live. The pattern which connects education and dis/orientation. In FORMENTI, L.; WEST, L. (eds.). Stories that Make a Difference: Exploring the collective, social and political potential of narratives in adult education research. Lecce: Pensa Multimedia, pp. 234-241, 2016.
FORMENTI, L. Complexity, adult biographies and cooperative transformation. In MILANA M. et alii (Eds.), The Palgrave International Handbook on Adult and Lifelong Education and Learning. London/New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 191-209, 2018.
FORMENTI, L.; CASTIGLIONI, M. Focus on Learners: A Search for Identity and Meaning in Autobiographical Practices. In ZARIFIS, G.; GRAVANI, M. (eds.) Challenging the 'European Area of Lifelong Learning': A critical response. Dordrecht: Springer, pp. 239-248, 2014.
FORMENTI, L.; LURASCHI, S. How do you breathe? In VOSS, A.; WILSON, S. (eds.). Re-Enchanting the Academy, Seattle: Rubedo Press, 2017.
FORMENTI, L.; WEST, L.; HORSDAL, M. (eds.) (2014). Embodied Narratives: Connecting stories, bodies, cultures and ecologies. Odense: University Press of Southern Denmark, 2014.
FORMENTI, L.; WEST, L. (eds.) Stories that Make a Difference: Exploring the collective, social and political potential of narratives in adult education research. Lecce: Pensa Multimedia, 2016.
FORMENTI, L.; WEST, L. Transforming Perspectives in Lifelong Learning and Adult Education: A dialogue. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018.
GERGEN, M.; GERGEN, K. Playing with Purpose: Adventures in performative social science. Walnut Creek: Left Coast Press, 2012.
HERON, J. Co-operative Inquiry: Research into the human condition. London: Sage, 1996.
HUNT, C. Transformative Learning through Creative Life Writing: Exploring the self in the learning process. London: Routledge, 2013.
JOHNSON, E.S. Ecological Systems and Complexity Theory: Toward an alternative model of accountability in education. Complicity: An International Journal of Complexity and Education, 5, 1, pp. 1-10, 2008.
JÖRG, T. Thinking in Complexity about Learning and Education: A Programmatic View. Complicity: An International Journal of Complexity and Education, 6, 1, pp. 1‐22, 2009.
LOORBACH, D. Transition Management for Sustainable Development: A prescriptive, complexity based governance framework. Governance, 23, 1, pp. 161-183, 2010.
MASON M. (ed.) Complexity Theory and the Philosophy of Education. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2008.
MATURANA, H. The Biological Foundations of Self-Consciousness and the Physical Domain of Existence. In LUHMANN et al. (eds.) Beobachter: Konvergenz der Erkenntnisttheorien? München: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, pp. 47-117, 1990.
MATURANA, H.; VARELA, F. The Tree of Knowledge: the biological roots of human under¬standing. Boston: Shambhala, 1992.
MEZIROW, J. Transformative Dimensions of Adult Learning. New York: Wiley & Sons, 1991.
MEZIROW, J. Learning to Think Like an Adult. Core Concepts of Transformation Theory. In MEZIROW J. et alii Learning as Transformation: Critical Perspectives on a Theory in Progress. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, pp. 3-34, 2000.
MORIN, E. (1977) Method: Towards a study of humankind. New York: Peter Lang, 1992.
MORIN, E. On Complexity. Cresskill: Hampton Press, 1990.
MORIN, E. Seven Complex Lessons in Education for the Future. Paris: UNESCO, 1999.
MORRISON, K. Complexity Theory, School Leadership and Management: Questions for theory and practice. Educational Management Administration and Leadership, 38, 3, pp. 374-393, 2010.
NORRIS, J.; SAWYER, R.; LUND, D. (eds) Duoethnography: Dialogic methods for social, health, and educational research, Walnut Creek: Left Coast Press, 2012.
OSBERG, D.; BIESTA, G. (eds.) Complexity Theory and the Politics of Education. Rotterdam: Sense, 2010.
ROSIEK, J.L. Beyond the Autoethnography versus Ironist Debate: Using C.S. Peirce and C. West to envision an alternative inquiry practice. In DENZIN, N.K.; GIARDINA, M.D. (eds), Global Dimensions of Qualitative Inquiry. Walnut Creek: Left Coast Press, pp. 157-180, 2013.
SALMON, C. Storytelling: Bewitching the modern mind. London: Verso Books, 2010.
SAWYER, R.; NORRIS, J. Duoethnography: Understanding qualitative research. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013.
SNOWDEN, D.J.; BOONE, M.E. A Leader’s Framework for Decision Making. Harvard Business Review, 85, 11, pp. 68-79, 2007.
SNYDER, S. The Simple, the Complicated, and the Complex: Educational Reform Through the Lens of Complexity Theory. OECD Education Working Papers, No. 96, OECD Publishing, 2013. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/5k3txnpt1lnr-en. Retrieved: Dec. 23, 2015].
STANLEY, D. Paradigmatic Complexity. Emerging ideas and historical views of the complexity sciences. In DOLL et alii (eds.) Chaos, Complexity, Curriculum, and Culture. New York: Peter Lang, pp. 133‐151, 2005.
TAYLOR, E.; CRANTON, P. et alii. The Handbook of Transformative Learning: Theory, Research, and Practice. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2012.
TISDELL, E.; SWARTZ, A. (Eds) Adult Education and the Pursuit of Wisdom. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2011.
VARELA, F.; THOMPSON E.; ROSCH E. The Embodied Mind: Cognitive science and human experience. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1991.
WEST, L. et alii (eds.) Using Biographical and Life History Approaches in the Study of Adult and Lifelong Learning: European perspectives. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2007.
ZARIFIS, G.; GRAVANI, M. (eds). Challenging the 'European Area of Lifelong Learning': A critical response. Dordrecht: Springer, 2014.
