Suchergebnisse

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. ; published version ; peerReviewed

This position paper offers a pedagogical frame to empower professional work in residential child care. Jobs in this demanding field are characterized by daily relationships with children of different ages, needs, and cultural backgrounds. There is a need for effective communication and interaction with them, their families, co-workers, other professionals, and care agencies, as well as with the larger community. This complexity brings uncertainty and the necessity of thinking and acting in a sensitive way in order to open possibilities for systemic transformation at the micro, meso, and macro levels. In this framework, we focus on reflexivity as a meta-competence — a set of specific postures, competences, and attitudes that characterize expert professional action. A thorough literature review on reflexivity in social work and child protection is aimed at clarifying the meanings, uses, and features of this concept. We claim that systemic reflexivity can be used as a framework, a methodology, and a set of tools to empower professional work by enhancing emotional, cognitive, and epistemic self-awareness, systemic wisdom, abduction, and active listening. To help workers and teams develop these five competences, a self-directed learning module is currently being designed, based on systemic and narrative perspectives, and transformative learning theory.

This paper offers a frame to reflect on the role of aesthetics in the development of a critical pedagogy for social justice in adult education. Arts-based research and practice have the power to illuminate the participants' views, ideas, and feelings, as well as the systems of values that are embedded in their contexts. Critical thinking and awareness are the result of relational and political processes, triggered by experience and going beyond subjectivity. The authors aim at defining a pedagogical practical theory that celebrates complexity, opens possibilities, develops the new, and triggers deliberate action, rather than fostering specific behaviours or learning. The paper itself is a piece of that pedagogy, developed through a cooperative method of writing-as-inquiry (duoethnography), here triggered by a photographic exhibition and resulting in the dialogic exploration of feminism in the authors' lives. In this example, it is shown how individual voices can be juxtaposed to develop an open, transforming theory of feminism, identity, and education. (DIPF/Orig.)