Paper presented at the international conference of the Association for Education and Ageing, “Later Life Learning – fit for purpose”, Brighton, July 2006.
Older People as Learners: identity, life change and well being
Heather Hodkinson (University Of Leeds)
LIFELONG LEARNING INSTITUTE
SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS
E.C.Stoner Building
LEEDS
LS29JT
UK
Tel: +44 (0)113 3433598
This working paper was produced as part of the Learning Lives Project. Copyright lies with the authors. If you cite or quote, please be sensitive to the fact that this is work in progress. The Learning Lives: Learning, Identity and Agency project (see learninglives.org) is a collaboration between the Universities of Exeter, Brighton, Leeds and Stirling and is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council as part of their Teaching and Learning Research Programme (TLRP) see www.tlrp.org
Abstract
This presentation draws on early findings from an on-going (2004-2008) life-history research project on learning, agency and identity. Using case studies I will show how learning can be central to the identities of some older people, either triggered by life changing events or as a continuation of earlier life patterns. Such people see engagement in the processes of learning as important, and beneficial. In the light of the findings, I briefly explore better ways to theorise learning as becoming, rather than as the acquisition of knowledge or skills. There are significant implications for the provision of learning for older people.
Older People as Learners: identity, life change and well being
Introduction
the Research Project
Slide one – the Project team
Slide two – the project aims and methods.
This paper is based on early findings from the research project, “Learning Lives: learning, identity, and agency in the life-course.” It is a three and a half year long project funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) under its Teaching and Learning Research Programme (TLRP). It involves a collaboration between 5 small research teams at 4 Universities – Exeter, Leeds, Brighton and Stirling. The project aims to deepen understanding of the meaning and significance of learning in the lives of adults, and to identify ways in which their learning can be supported and enhanced. To do this we are examining a range of learning experiences – formal, informal, tacit, incidental - from the perspective of adult learners, set within the context of their unfolding lives. Across the whole team there will be interviews with more than 100 adults about their life histories and their ongoing lives. In addition in Exeter there will be analysis of the British Household panel survey data to see what it can reveal about adults learning. The sample for the qualitative part of the study includes a broad a range of people in Britain. There are men and women of varied ethnicity and social class, varied educational achievement and occupational status, ranging in age from 25 to over 80.
Slide 3 – the research samples.
Research method
I’m going to restrict what I say here to data from the Leeds team, but this is presented in the light of the findings from the other teams. In Leeds 3 part-time researchers have conducted life histories and longitudinal case studies with 21 adults. Our brief was to interview people who were, at the start of the project, participating in adult education classes or involved in guidance procedures. Because of existing expertise we were asked to focus particularly on the over 50s age group.
Each individual was interviewed first in a very open way about their life history, being asked to tell their life story in their own way with as little interruption or prompting as possible, but in the knowledge that the project was about learning. In succeeding interviews that information has been explored and additional information sought in a slightly more structured way, building on the earlier interview(s). Once a reasonable life history had been established further interviews have taken place at approximately 6 monthly intervals. These later interviews as well as elaborating the life history, have sought information about ongoing events in people’s lives. We are able to follow longitudinally the lives and learning of this group of people over 3 years.
Although we are more than half way through the data collection, we are only at an early stage of analyzing that data. Nevertheless we have a wonderful rich collection of ongoing life stories, from which we are abstracting and constructing individual learning biographies.
Case studies of formal learning late in the lifecourse
I will use most of the rest of the paper to present 3 case studies of people who are now “older learners”, since the construction of contextual learning biographies is the current stage of our analysis. I hope to show from the case studies some of the reasons for engagement in formal learning and the great importance that formal learning can have for some people in later life. We have a lot of information about many kinds of learning in people’s lives, but I’ve chosen to concentrate on formal learning, because most of the Leeds sample were committed to taking part in some kind of formal learning, and this shines through in the data.
‘Formal learning’ is a bit of a problematic term because everybody understands something slightly different by it, as demonstrated in the report by Colley, Hodkinson and Malcolm in 2004. The formal learning discussed here concerns practices that are explicitly structured for learning, such as courses, in locations intended for learning, and normally led by a teacher. They would take place whether or not any particular learner joined. For all of our sample, informal learning is also very important and sometimes closely related to their formal learning.
Slide 4 – case list & patterns of engagement.
In our early analysis of the data at Leeds we did look specifically at people’s involvement with formal learning. There’s quite a long working paper on the website. One of the things we noticed was that over a lifespan people had different patterns of involvement. Some people never participated after the end of their compulsory schooling. Others have rarely stopped, some have dipped in and out, several have not become engaged until they finished paid work. In all cases those who have begun to participate have remained engaged over significant periods. The 3 case studies are of people with different patterns of engagement with formal learning. They illustrate different and complex reasons why people take up formal learning in later life, and show what they gain from it.
Anna Reynard
Aged 66, Anna said, “Learning is the leitmotif of my life”. She grew up in a middle class socialist family where school success was strongly encouraged. She went to university to study languages. Her second year was a disaster but she managed to remotivate herself and came away with a 2nd class honours degree. She had wanted to study English and to have a creative career but was persuaded to take a teaching qualification first. She did not want to be a teacher of people like herself and is disappointed that she did spend quite a bit of her life doing just that, but she did become increasingly interested in educational disadvantage and how to tackle it. She married and took several years out from paid work to look after her young children, living in relative poverty as her husband was initially a casual labourer and then a social work student. Over this period she continued to educate herself through reading and courses. She returned to work, first as a primary school teacher, then further education college teacher, educational social worker, teacher trainer and more. At all stages she made use of any courses and training that were available to her. For the latter part of her career she returned to secondary teaching in disadvantaged areas. This was problematic as she was unable to succeed using her principled teaching methods and came close to a nervous breakdown. As she approached retirement age she saw a research studentship advertised at the college (now university) where she had previously worked. She won the award, and the research allowed her to reexplore more generally the sorts of problems she had faced in teaching. This, combined with eventual success in the PhD at the age of 63, allowed her to rebuild her somewhat damaged identity. At the time when she was studying her husband became terminally ill, and she found that the PhD study and the book which followed helped her survive this trauma.
Since her husband died and she has officially retired, she has taken an active part in U3A both as teacher and student, pursuing physical activities which were both enjoyable and she believed, good for her health, and extending her understanding of other subjects.
She met a new partner and they lived together for two years but sadly he developed cancer, and died just before her second interview with me. She thinks that because of these recent losses she now feels rather differently about how she spends her life. She thinks she is feeling her own mortality. She says she is floating somewhat, not wanting to commit herself to any kind of long term project, but to do things as they appeal to her on the moment, and to try to do some things she has wanted to do for some time. U3A is currently a commitment, but she has flexibility over what to study, and how to teach. Like others in the learning lives project she feels something of a lack of structure, in the summer when there are no courses, although she is concerned that she might fail to make use of the opportunity to fit in other things that she doesn’t have time to do when classes are on. Over the last year however she has started a new project, researching her family history. This has not actually involved any courses, but rather internet, book and practical research.
Anna has had to rebuild her life a couple of times over the last few years and has done so, with the support of her family, by developing new interests and extending old ones she. She has been able to make use of the love of learning she has had throughout her life.
Stephen Connor
Stephen grew up on a council estate in a northern industrial city. His Irish catholic family had very strong ethical values, which he retains, but also did a lot to broaden their children’s understanding by taking them out on trips and into the countryside. As a teenager he was offered opportunities to take up acting and to become a professional footballer, but allowed himself to be persuaded by his parents into a more traditional apprenticeship. His school had provided a very limited curriculum after the age of 12, repeating the same work in successive years. Stephen had to go to night school to get the maths he needed for the college part of his apprenticeship. He became a TV repair man working for a national rental firm. He moved into supervisory roles fairly quickly, and his mid life reentry into formal learning was all work related. This was a period of rapid technological change, and the national company ran courses for senior employees about all the innovations like colour TV. It was then his responsibility to pass on the new knowledge. Alongside this Stephen married, bough a small house, had children and went on caravan holidays. He describes family as more important than work. However he enjoyed the work and responsibility he had at the rental firm. As TVs became cheaper and more reliable, the firm declined and he was made redundant. In his next job he was exploited as he wouldn’t let people down. He was responsible for microwave repairs across half the country and for organising TV repairs more locally. He ended up stressed and was twice hospitalised for several months suffering from clinical depression. He decided to get out of electronics and to take lower paid work without responsibility. Unfortunately he suffered a serious back injury while working as a machine operator, and has been unable to work since.
This early retirement through ill health was a major blow to Stephen, particularly distressing for someone who had been very active - keen on sports and dancing. He went from earning a good wage to living on disability allowance. And he found the whole experience of having to go to “the social” extremely demeaning. Immediately post retirement he found himself “vegetating” and could feel that he was on the verge of slipping back into depression. His wife and frequent visits from granddaughters helped him keep going, but what has made the biggest difference was going to courses at his local community community. Wanting to help the granddaughters with their maths homework was one of the incentives that took him ‘back to school’. Having discovered the local community centre he found there were many courses he was interested in. As well as the maths, a computer course related to his grandchildren’s activities, and he had always wanted to research his family history. History was something he had hated at school but now finds really interesting, especially recent history and biographies. In his second interview he describes his decision to come to classes as being both for himself and to be able to help the grandchildren. It was a deliberate move to take on a new interest and stop the slide into depression. And it has been a success. Meeting a lot of nice people at the classes is important but so is the interest in the subject matter and skills. Previously formal learning was only for work. He might prefer to be at work and he’d rather be able to go dancing with his wife, but he accepts that he can’t do these and the classes are providing a good alternative. In fact he feels he would have missed out if he hadn’t started coming. “Well, since I stared to come here, um, as I say, I seem to know more people. It seems to have given me a – a spurt… Um, I enjoy learning. I know that sounds daft, but – I do enjoy learning, yeah.”