Download RTF version - Graduate School of Education

BRITISH EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ASSOCIATION
ANNUAL CONFERENCE
UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS
13-15 SEPTEMBER 2001.
Cultures and Learning in Further Education
David James University of the West of England, Bristol
Martin Bloomer University of Exeter
Contacts:
Dr David James
Reader, Faculty of Education
University of the West of England, Bristol
Frenchay Campus
Coldharbour Lane
BRISTOL BS16 1QY
UK
Tel. 44 (0)117 344 4215
Fax 44 (0)117 344 4150 or 344 4110
Email [email protected]
Professor Martin Bloomer
University of Exeter School of Education
Heavitree Road
Exeter EX1 2LU
UK
Tel. 44 (0)1392 264848
Email [email protected]
1
Introduction
Whilst many would agree with Bruner’s insistence that ‘learning and thinking are always
situated in a cultural setting, and always dependent upon the utilization of cultural resources’
(Bruner, 1996, p.4), the concept of culture nevertheless has several broad distinctive meanings
(Williams, 1976), each with educational significance. This makes the term culture both
attractive and difficult to use in understanding educational activity.
In this paper, we identify a range of understandings and uses of the concept as revealed in
contemporary research and scholarship, giving particular attention to an approach derived from
the work of Pierre Bourdieu and some areas of affinity this has with the recent sociocultural
work of James Wertsch. We then turn our attention to a new ESRC-funded research project,
Transforming Learning Cultures in Further Education, and consider the requirements and
opportunities presented by that project for theorising a concept of culture. We ponder the
notion of ‘authentic learning sites’ and consider what it might contribute to conceptualising the
temporal, spatial, psychological and social parameters of learning and the notion of learning
culture. Finally, we present a number of questions which we consider are worth addressing at
this early stage in the project and prior to our attempts to operationalise a concept of culture in
our own fieldwork.
Notions of culture in the study of learning
Despite objections from at least as far back as Dewey (1901), it is only recently that criticisms
of western psychology for its individualistic orientation (Rogoff, 1990) and for its treatment of
mental functioning as existing, ‘in a cultural, institutional and historical vacuum’ (Wertsch,
1991, p 2) have been made to tell. Since the 1980s, the essentialistic functionalism and static
models underpinning cognitive psychology have been subject to increasing critical scrutiny,
principally because they emphasise learning as a determined, individualistic cognitive process
and have had little regard for context. The old orthodoxies in which learners were treated as
disconnected knowledge-processing agents have now largely given way to ones in which
learners have moved centre stage as active knowledge-makers or constructors who bring to
their learning a wide range of social and cultural experiences.
Such a movement is noticeable in constructivism which rests upon the premise that,
‘knowledge is not passively received but actively built up by the cognizing subject’ (von
Glasersfeld, 1989, p 182). Cognitive constructivism focuses on the development of the
cognitive schemes which make knowledge construction possible and draws significantly from
Piaget’s (1950) theory of intellectual development. It is concerned with the ‘progressive
adaptation of individual’s cognitive schemes to the physical environment’ (Driver, et al., 1994, p
6). However, like cognitive psychology, it is based upon a highly individualist model of human
development and offers only limited opportunities for exploring culture.
Social constructivism has been inspired partly by the work of Vygotsky (1896-1934), although
its emphasis upon the social construction of meaning and personal knowledge in a symbolic
world suggests it draws also upon the basic organising ideas of phenomenology and symbolic
interactionism. In so far as social constructivism is built upon an understanding of social, as
distinct from individual, constructions of knowledge, it affords some scope for theorising
cultural dimensions of learning. However, it maintains in practice a conceptual dichotomy
between individual activity and social processes and fails to make explicit their dialectical
interdependence (John-Steiner and Mahn, 1996). Moreover, much of its research has been
conducted within the confines of formally designated educational programmes and institutions.
2
For these reasons, the capacity of social constructivism to relate questions of learning to wider
cultural concerns must be considered limited.
Vygotsky’s work on cultural-historical activity theory, emphasising as it does the cultural
context of individual meaning-making, has contributed significantly to the recent rise of interest
in culture. Activity theory, developed initially by Vygotsky (1978), Leont’ev and Luria, claims
that all activity is socially mediated and that consciousness is located not in the head but in
practice (Nardi, 1996). Moreover,
context is constituted through the enactment of an activity involving people and
artifacts … (which) carry with them a particular culture and history and are
persistent structures that stretch across activities through time and space
(Rodriguez, 1998, p 2).
The aim of activity theory is thus to deepen understanding of the dialectical relations binding
the individual and the social, cultural and historical (Bannon and Bødker, 1991). Prominent
here is the work of Engeström (1987, 1990) on activity systems and expansive learning and
Cole (1988, 1996a, 1996b) on cultural diversity and cultural psychology. Cole, for instance,
argues against ‘simplified notions of context as cause’ (1996a, p 139), citing the works of
Giddens on structuration, Bourdieu on habitus, and Engeström on activity systems. He makes
distinct claims upon the opportunities which culture affords for transcending dualisms of
structure and agency, and for pursuing temporal and lateral connectivity1 :
(Culture) provides me with a unit of analysis that has natural linkages to the
macro pole of society and its institutions and the micro level of individual thoughts
and actions. … Central is the need to study culturally mediated behavior
developmentally to reveal the dynamic interactions uniting different parts of the
overall life system. Equally important is the need to conduct research at several
developmental/historical (genetic) levels in order to analyze the ways in which
they intertwine and fuse in human life over time (Cole, 1996a, pp 143 and 145).
Other work in the field draws from social anthropology and incorporates elements of
phenomenology as well as Vygotsky’s (1981) work on psychological development and the
social construction of the mind (Leont'ev, 1981). Much of this work is referred to as
‘sociocultural theory’ and distinguished partly by the importance it attaches to social interaction,
community and culture, and inter-relationships between learner, activity and context.
‘Explanations of developmental coupling between persons and activities lie within broader
patterns of sociocultural change and their embodiment in activity’ (Beach, 1995, p 302).
Sociocultural processes and individual functioning are relational, existing ‘in a dynamic,
irreducible tension rather than a static notion of social determination’ (Penuel and Wertsch,
1995, p 84). Learning, in this view, is to be understood not as acquisition but as activity
contributing to change and enrichment of the individual (Renshaw, 1992).
However, as Bereiter (1994) notes, the neo-Vygotskyists ‘are not the first to have studied
learning in its cultural milieu. Educational anthropology has done this from its beginning’ (p
21). Bereiter claims that the distinctive contribution of recent work is its illumination of learning
and cognition outside formally prescribed learning situations. Driven by a conception of
learning as participation, and distinguished by an absence of instructional metaphors, this work
has released opportunities for theorising learning as a social practice in a range of cultural
settings. It has captured some of the complexities of learning in ways not permitted by other
approaches through such notions as ‘situated cognition’ (Brown et al., 1989), ‘cognitive
apprenticeship’ (Collins et al., 1989; Rogoff, 1990) and ‘legitimate peripheral participation’
(Lave and Wenger, 1991). These have been employed to represent individual-context
3
relationships and learning processes. However, while research is frequently focused on
communities of practice, such anthropology, or situativity theory, takes little account of the
complex relational and continually changing patterns of a wide range of cultural experiences as
may be relevant in particular cases.
Activity theory and sociocultural theory appear to give ample recognition to cultural dimensions
of learning. However, a number of concerns should be registered. First, despite strong claims
about dialectic relationships of individual and context, theorists frequently fail to consider the
concrete social organisation of activity. ‘In the field of cultural psychology it is exceedingly rare
to find a concrete discussion of culture … It is even less usual to find cultural psychologists
connecting … features of a social system in a meaningful way to psychological phenomena’
(Ratner, 1996, p 2). Second, while there has been, following Scribner (1984), significant work
focused upon learning in the workplace and other naturalistic settings, much research in the
field centres upon classroom- or other institution-based interactions between teachers and
learners. This latter work ‘obscures the broader cultural and political concerns that are central
to the perspective’ (Renshaw, 1992, p 1). Third, the primary concerns of many theorists in the
field are with the development of mind and higher psychological functions, giving rise to an
‘imbalance’ in the individual-culture dialectic. This one-sidedness, or mentalist tendency, has
been noted by a number of critics including Ratner (op cit.). Packer (1993), for instance, has
criticised sociocultural theory’s use of the concept of ‘internalization’, claiming that it promotes
a dualism between the internal and the external: ‘the processes and mechanisms being
examined keep creeping back inside the head’ (John-Steiner and Mahn, 1996, p 197).
There is evidently a wide range of interpretations and applications of activity theory and, while
a regard for the cultural-historical dynamics of sociocultural processes and for the individualcontext dialectic is evident in some works, others display a marked mentalist tendency or a
failure to relate the complexities of learning to their wider cultural contexts. Similarly,
educational anthropology, or situativity theory, claims learning to be a culturally situated
phenomenon. However, not only do studies frequently portray learners as somewhat passive,
guided by ‘experts’ or ‘masters’ with little regard for their active construction of knowledge
(Hughes and Greenhough, 1998), they take little account of the complex relational and
continually changing patterns of cultural experience.
While many such theoretical approaches may be criticised for understating the significance of
culture, the anthropological works of such figures as Geertz, Schneider and Sahlins have been
criticised for their heavy reliance upon cultural explanations to the exclusion of other
possibilities. At the end of his comprehensive tour of the anthropological uses of culture, Adam
Kuper argues that whilst these works do constitute a “success story”, the various “critical
experiments in cultural determinism … fail when they overreach themselves and presume that
culture rules, and that other factors can be excluded from the study of cultural processes and
social behaviour” (Kuper, 1999, p. 246). Extending an argument from the cognitive
anthropologist D’Andrade, Kuper wants us to consider the “pieces” of culture and their
“relations to other things”, rather than expecting cultural explanations to be sufficient.
Kuper mentions both Foucault and Bourdieu as theorists who insist on relations with other
things (such as power, or institutions) in this connection. But what notion of culture is to be
found in Bourdieu’s writing, and what sorts of relations does it give us cause to attend to,
especially if we wish to study something as diverse as learning?
Bourdieu and culture
Bourdieu’s notion of culture grows from a critical position in relation to the anthropological
4
heritage (Bourdieu, 1977). It refuses to come down on the side of either subjectivist or
objectivist readings:
There is a continual dialectic between objectivity and subjectivity. Social agents
are incorporated bodies who possess, indeed, are possessed by structural,
generative schemes which operate by orienting social practice. This, in a
nutshell, is Bourdieu’s theory of practice. Practice, the dynamic of which is
probably better captured by the word praxis, is a cognitive operation; it is
structured and tends to reproduce structures of which it is a product. We are, of
course, not simply repeating actions endlessly. Evolution and change in practice
do occur. However, it comes about, not so much through the replication of action
but its reproduction. Reproduction implies both variation and limitation in what is
and is not possible in the behaviour, thought and physical action of people
(Grenfell and James, 1998, p 12).
A range of conceptual tools are on offer to help us investigate the social world within this
theory of practice, which also claims to be a theory-as-method. They include habitus and field:
the former, a durable but transposable set of dispositions, representing the physical and
mental embodiment of the social but at the same time offering choices, played out in what
Bourdieu terms strategy; the latter, a structured system of social relations at micro and macro
level, rather like a field of forces in which positions are defined relationally, that is, in relation to
each other. Usually there are particular and discernable forms of capital at stake in a field,
commonly economic, social or cultural or some combination of these. Conceptual tools such
as these provide the researcher with a “way of thinking and a manner of asking questions”
(Mahar et al, 1990, p.3) and promise to help them avoid constructing reified types and
categories in the way that much social science does (talking of ‘the adult learner’, ‘the mature
student’ or ‘the disaffected learner’ and the like). Bourdieu's approach holds out the possibility
of producing descriptions, explanations and understandings of complex social practices without
reducing them to either mentalistic or social variables. It also counsels against the tendency to
obscure social practices by seeing them only as manifestations of a particular theory or model
(e.g. rational choice theory): to do so is, in Bourdieu's terms, to confuse ‘the model of reality
with the reality of the model’. The approach is furthermore characterised by a radical notion of
reflexivity, wherein the background and interests of the investigator, and in particular their
relation to the object of study, is of primary concern.
Bourdieu insists that he has absolutely no wish to be part of abstract "theoretical" discussions
that are detached from the world of practice (see for example Bourdieu, 1989, p.50). He
argues that his approach is a theory-as-method, and only makes sense in relation to empirical
matters. It may be helpful at this point to describe an example of the sort of analysis that
emerges when some part of the social world is examined via this approach. Let us mention
one that is not our own.
In a recent article entitled Bourdieu, social suffering and working class life, Simon Charlesworth
provides a very good illustration of what can be done to illuminate what some might describe
from its outward signs as “the culture of poverty”. Charlesworth’s account is based on
interpretations of a series of direct quotations from some of the poorest people in Rotherham in
the UK. What comes across very clearly is the mutual accommodation of habitus and field
(though Charlesworth uses Merleau-Ponty’s closely related notion of primacy of perception to
emphasise the notion of a “horizon” (cf. horizons for action in Hodkinson et al, 1996).
5
Having suggested that an economic and social “levelling” has occurred (in the sense that a
bomb might be said to "level" a building), accompanied for these people by a profound sense
of vulnerability and insecurity, Charlesworth continues:
A peculiar effect of domination is that many of the most dispossessed seem
unaware of the extent to which their life is circumscribed by such conditions.
Conditions of dispropriation mean that people do not have access to the
resources; the instruments through which their understanding might begin to
constitute a concrete sense of the limits of life and, paradoxically, the more fully
the limits of life enforce themselves, the more powerfully people inscribe a sense
of this life as the only life possible…there can be little incentive, (there could be
no interest) in developing other forms of consciousness beyond those of the
‘mindless’ everyday coping skills through which it makes sense to live such
conditions. To begin to develop forms of consciousness that make the world
consciously problematic, something to be thought about; to move away from the
efficiency of habits attuned to life in this world would be to invite a slide from
semi-conscious frustration to absurdity and transform ordinary unhappiness into
misery. Living life in the context of minimal expectations, the only strategy that
makes practical sense is to maintain an ignorance of anything better, to kill one’s
hopes (Charlesworth, 2000, p 54).
This argument, amply supported by data, is not to be read as yet another form of cultural
determinism. The people Charlesworth interviewed all have and make choices, all make
decisions, all function as agents. The point is that they do so from a habitus, i.e. within a
sense of reality or a sense of limits, which for the most part is not experienced as “constraint”;
and that these limits are socially located and reproduced, not least (though not only) by their
own actions. Evidence of the dynamic nature of this mutual adjustment of habitus and field
may be seen a further example of Charlesworth’s data. A man who had lost his job a short
time earlier described how hard it was to cope initially, but how after a while “yer brain starts to
work differently”, quite separately from any self-willed response. We may be tempted to
describe this as nothing more than a lowering of expectations, though if we do we are forcing
the issue back into the realm of the individual and their personality. In fact much more is being
suggested here: a re-adjustment that is experienced as automatic and which cannot be
adequately characterised as either conscious or unconscious (perhaps it is both), and the
reproduction of a category and the sets of possibilities that accompany particular positions in a
field of (un-)employment. Bourdieu’s term for this is ‘the subjective expectation of objective
probability’, or ontological complicity. One of the authors investigated similar adjustments in a
very different setting (i.e. a group of mature students in higher education), with people whose
access to material and other resources puts them worlds apart from Charlesworth’s
interviewees. These people experienced dramatic positive and negative shifts in their sense of
self-worth which appeared to be related to (but seemed completely out of proportion with)
shifts in the distribution of the capital at stake in that particular field, namely grades on
assessed work (see James, 2000).
There are three points we would like to take from the brief presentation of these examples.
Firstly, we would advocate great caution is necessary in the way that we interpret even quite
established concepts (such as the distinction between conscious and unconscious, or
"intrinsic" and "extrinsic" motivation, or concepts like "internalisation"). These concepts, and
their paradigmatic illustrations, may be useful, but they are to be appreciated in relation to the
scientific communities and interests that produced them and are not to be granted an
automatic authority. The related idea that we are adding to a body of knowledge about
learning in some simple cumulative sense is clearly problematic.
6
Secondly, we suggest that a study of learning must focus not simply upon temporally or
spatially prescribed learning sites categorised in terms of institutions, curricula, subjects and
timetables (e.g., college; Advanced GNVQ; engineering; Thursdays, 3.00-4.30pm), and which
dominate in the popular discourse, but upon authentic learning sites. Authentic learning sites
include, potentially, much of what is recognised in formally prescribed learning opportunities
but they also include much that is not prescribed such as home, peer group and personal
relations, accidents, career and other aspirations, and even sleep. They are endowed with
meaning – the meanings, sometimes idiosyncratic and sometimes shared, that individuals
bring to their learning and that they construct in the course of their learning. They are ‘elastic’
and vary not only from individual to individual, but even in an individual case, from moment to
moment. Moreover, they are situated within wider social, cultural, economic, political and
moral networks and have to be understood in terms of such situativity. The authentic learning
site, so described, is the learning culture.
Thirdly, we would suggest that research and scholarship must recognise learning not simply as
occurring within a cultural context but as a cultural practice. It must take as its focus the
practices of people in their authentic learning sites and avoid the alchemy that so readily turns
students and teachers into instances of a category, into a species, or alternatively has them as
the mere carriers of cultures or cognitive operations. The habituses of both learners and
teachers will be important to an understanding of learning sites and activities and of what
happens (or does not happen) within them.
Finally, it is worth noting that there are many points of potential affinity between a general
approach informed by Bourdieu, and some recent sociocultural thinking. In his recent work,
James Wertsch (1996, 1998) presents arguments about both the need for a refined
sociocultural approach and what might constitute its primary concerns. Whilst there is not the
space here for a detailed or comprehensive treatment of this general point, it is nevertheless
worth pointing to a small number of examples of what we mean by ‘potential affinity’.
The first is that Wertsch argues for developing explanations that cross, link or disrupt
disciplinary boundaries, and draws on the work of other theorists who do this (see Eg Wertsch,
1998, p.5). This is characteristic of Bourdieu's approach. Secondly, and citing Norbert Elias
amongst others, Wertsch reminds us of the need for an end to counterproductive oscillations
between over-privileging either the individual or society in our accounts of social action: we
have to find ways to "live in the middle…of several different analytic perspectives" (Wertsch,
1998, p. 16). Mediated action should be the focus, and this is irreducible to either pole of the
dichotomy. Though he arrives having taken quite a different route, Bourdieu’s social theory
presents us with a similar lesson. Thirdly, Wertsch draws on both Dewey and Kenneth Burke
to argue that the theorist should offer a method rather than a set of representations of reality: in
other words, he argues for a theory-as-method. To this end he presents Burke's pentad of
generating principles around action (Act, Scene, Agent, Agency and Purpose) and the
accompanying argument that all need addressing without any being overemphasised.
Furthermore, Burke recognised that we cannot be all-knowing, and that
…there must remain something essentially enigmatic about the problem of motives, and
that this underlying enigma will manifest itself in inevitable ambiguities and
inconsistencies among the terms for motives. Accordingly, what we want is not terms
that avoid ambiguity, but terms that clearly reveal the strategic spots at which
ambiguities necessarily arise (Burke, 1969, p. xviii, quoted in Wertsch, 1998, p.15).
7
Fourthly, Wertsch is interested in exploring the interplay of "constraint" and "affordance" of
action by the available cultural tools, and linked to this the way in which people do not for the
most part experience constraints as constraints. He suggests that there is an “illusion of
perspective” around cultural tools in a time and a place, such that they seem “timeless and
natural" (Wertsch, 1998, p. 45). For Bourdieu, both habitus and strategy are at issue in social
practices, the one referring to an embodied social location (position) which gives a sense of
reality and limits (disposition), the other referring to the myriad choices we all have all the time
for choosing a course of action. As for illusion of perspective, Bourdieu's notion of
meconnaisance (misrecognition) refers to a similar, though sociologically framed point, in that
(for example) differences between educational institutions, courses or qualifications are for the
most part ignored in terms of the social (class) differentiation that they reproduce. This is not
quite as straightforward an idea as ‘illusion’, though has parallels with the illusion we enjoy
when watching a conjurer sawing a person in half: Bourdieu’s sense here is of knowing yet
acting and reacting as if we did not.
It is our view that an approach to the study of learning that is informed by Bourdieu’s theory-asmethod can give appropriate attention to culture and that it will allow us to arrive at new
understandings of learning in authentic sites. We would also suggest that such an approach
has some interesting and potentially fruitful affinities with some sociocultural work.
Transforming learning cultures in further education
The Transforming Learning Cultures in Further Education (FE) or TLC project was announced
in September 2000 as part of the ESRC-funded Teaching and Learning Research Programme.
It is a four-year longitudinal study which is expressly focused upon learning in authentic
settings sites with particular regard to the cultural experiences of the learners concerned. The
aims of the project are threefold:
(i)
to deepen understanding of the complexities of learning;
(ii)
to identify, implement and evaluate strategies for the improvement of learning
opportunities; and
(iii)
to set in place an enhanced and lasting capacity among practitioners for
enquiry into FE practice.
The research will entail an intensive examination of educational practice, learning and learning
cultures. It will be based upon a partnership between four universities and four FE-sector
colleges from the North, Midlands and South of England. It will entail close collaboration
between FE- and university-based researchers and FE teachers, students and managers and
will be integrated with existing communities of practice. Because of this, it is expected that it
will impact strongly upon the practices of those involved.
A key aspect of the authenticity of learning sites to be addressed is the complexity of
relationships between teachers, teaching, learners, learning, learning situations and the widest
contexts of learning. In the TLC project, we attach importance to the term, ‘culture’, to indicate
these complex relationships and we aim to discover, within a variety of settings, what a culture
of learning is.
The project design is based upon a ‘nested case study’ approach, since it is in cases that the
full complexity of the inter-relationships of the FE learning field can be most readily identified.
The cases will be chosen at two levels of scale. At the first level, four case study FE colleges
8
have been selected and the design of the project negotiated with their key staff. The colleges
are of different types, serving different catchment areas, in different parts of England. Each
college is a field in its own right, and there are some common institutional positions, relations
and procedures. A comparison between the four, supplemented by the investigation of the
national historical, social, economic and political contexts of FE, will give a clear understanding
of the ways in which the national FE field impacts upon the practices of tutors and students in
the college cases.
At the second level, within each college, four learning sites have been chosen, providing 16
across the whole project. They have been selected to cover the widest a range of learning
situations, circumstances and learners possible. Variables considered in their selection have
been: mode of attendance on college course, level of ability/qualification, academic and
vocational subjects, locations (such as classrooms, workshops, outreach, workplace, distance
learning, e-learning), student populations (considering class, gender, age and ethnicity) and
tutor backgrounds (including gender, age, ethnicity, experience). In addition to the more
‘mainstream’ A-level and vocational course students, the sites include adult returners to
learning in the form of Access students, 14-16 year-old vocational studies pupils, those on
occupationally-specific day-release programmes (working for first or second level NVQ
qualifications or Higher national Diplomas), students on a ‘young mothers’ programme, and
distance learners studying independently or on ‘outreach’ community education programmes.
Each will be studied in relation to its college context, within the wider national situation already
referred to.
The notion learning culture is broader and more ‘elastic’ and complex than that of learning site
alone. We intend to use the term, learning culture, to include the time and space within which
learning occurs and, also, those persons or material conditions whose presence impinges
upon learning whether they are the subject of formal prescription or not. It thus includes
conventional class meetings of recognised student groups and their tutors, but it may also
include work experience, private study, recreation, family life, personal relationships and other
cultural experiences. But, as we have already said, learning cultures consist of shared and
contested meanings whose perpetual evolution lies at the very heart of learning processes.
By building the TLC project around a notion of learning culture, we hope to be able to move
beyond that popular conception of learning as an activity that is bounded by teaching,
educational institutions and learning prescriptions, to one which recognises that learning
invariably transcends such boundaries. We have alluded already to the ‘lateral connectivity’ of
learning, namely that it relates to phenomena whose physical existence lies well outside
formally prescribed learning environments and may include parents, friends, community,
personal aspirations and opportunity structures, identity, vocational intentions, personal
relationships and a host of other considerations. We have also mentioned its ‘temporal
connectivity’: how one set of learning experiences connect with others that precede or follow it
(Bloomer, in press). Both of these notions will need to be borne firmly in mind if we are to
exploit the full potential of our concepts of authentic learning site and learning culture.
Moreover, as recent research in neuroscience reminds us, learning is not necessarily a
conscious activity and occurs even during sleep (Maquet et al, 2000).
Our work with each of the 16 learning sites will focus on a particular class or group of learners
and their interactions with each other and with their participating tutor. The tutor will be a
partner in the research process, and will keep a detailed field diary of her/his relevant activities
and observations for the duration of the research. Six students from each site will be selected
for detailed study. They will be chosen to represent the range of students normally
encountered in that particular site, paying careful attention to gender, social class, ethnicity,
9
age (in a mixed age group) and prior educational attainments. They will be volunteers,
prepared to share in the activity of the project. Tutors and the selected students will all be
interviewed twice a year for three years or for the duration of their engagement in the case
study group. In addition, students will be interviewed on one further occasion, several weeks
after they have left. We anticipate an interview sample of between 12 and 24 students for
each site and an overall sample for the project of approximately 240. This cohort approach will
allow longitudinal change in learning and in dispositions to learning to be mapped. The
interviews will be semi-structured, balancing commonality across the project with opportunities
to investigate the particular interests and circumstances of the subjects. Interviews will explore
dispositions to learning and will include respondents’ accounts of recent learning experiences,
their views of what constitutes effective or desirable learning, and their future hopes and
intentions. They will also encourage respondents to make reference to their lives beyond their
college programmes, enabling learning and learning cultures to be examined in relation to a
wide range of human experiences.
Interviews will be supplemented by observations of learning and teaching. These will follow a
common schedule, but with flexibility to fit divergent situations, and will be carried out twice a
term for three years. The prime focus of these observations will be the learning activities
undertaken, and the inter-relationships among students and between students and tutor.
Observations will incorporate informal discussions with tutors and students, and participation in
activities where appropriate. Though notes will be made during the observed sessions, key
data recording will be carried out immediately after the observation is completed.
Observations and interviews will be methodologically linked. Insights gathered from
observations, as they concern individual cases, will be used in the planning of subsequent
interviews with those individuals. At the same time, interviews will be used to alert observers
to issues that they might take into account in later observations.
The project will also include an annual questionnaire survey of all students located in the 16
learning sites. Half of the questionnaire sample will figure in the interview sample and half will
not, thus enabling comparisons between those two sub-groups to be made. The questionnaire
will be developed and piloted during the six-month preparation phase of the project and has
three linked purposes:
1. to indicate changes in students’ dispositions that may occur over time, enabling those
changes to be examined in the light of changes in tutors’ and others’ practices;
2. to allow the smaller sample of interviewed students to be grounded within the population
from which they are drawn, enabling quantitative data to illuminate the qualitative material
and vice versa;
3. by progressive refinement of the questionnaire, to enable relationships between
intervention, practice, culture and learning to be more readily discerned.
There are no precedents for a study of learning in authentic settings in FE that remains
empirically grounded and which addresses the cultural complexity of learning. Work of this
type requires an enabling theoretical approach that will provide methodological focus without a
premature ‘closing down’ of analytical possibilities. To this end, the project will make heuristic
use of the concepts and approaches developed in the work of Bourdieu, described above.
There are four principal reasons for this choice, as follows.
Firstly, Bourdieu’s theory-as-method offers researchers a relational approach to educational
problems that emphasises the mutual interdependence of social constraint and individual
10
volition, or ‘structure’ and ‘agency’. Social practices are understood as having both an
objective and a subjective reality at one and the same moment. Complex human relations and
activities can be understood via theoretical tools such as habitus and field that enable the
‘unpacking’ of social practices in social spaces. Habitus and field are mutually constituting, a
point of considerable practical importance to the way that the actions of tutors, students and
others are studied and understood.
Secondly, a Bourdieuian approach necessitates working across discipline boundaries and
challenges researchers to think in new ways about familiar variables and the disciplinary
location of these variables. An example of this is the challenge the approach presents to the
common-sense distinction between conscious and unconscious sources of motivation.
Thirdly, the approach promotes a robust form of reflexivity of sufficient strength for the goals of
the project, for example drawing attention to the relative social positionings of researchers and
those they study and the implications of this for knowledge generation.
Fourthly, there is evidence that Bourdieu’s ‘theory-as-method’, and in particular the stance it
promotes in relation to culture, can bring fresh insight to bear on the understanding of
educational issues and settings (Grenfell and James, 1998).
Bourdieu emphasises the relationship between disposition and position (Bourdieu and
Passeron, 1990; Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992). A person’s habitus is a way of talking about
who that person is and where in society they are positioned, and about their interactions with
others. The project will examine the ways in which students and tutors interact with each
other, centring upon the actual learning activities undertaken. But it will also examine wider
aspects of interaction, in settings beyond those formally designated for learning. Findings from
learning sites will be compared in order to illuminate features that are common across most or
all of them, the nature of any differences between them, and the reasons for such similarities
and differences.
Conclusion: some pertinent questions
Our TLC project has been designed with a certain view of culture in mind. It has also been
designed on the basis of a number of assumptions about how learning might usefully be
theorised. But it has in addition been designed to allow our conceptualisations of culture,
learning and educational practice to be further developed and refined. Thus, we expect that
the early phases of the project will result in some clarification or modification of our initial ideas
and standpoints.
It is therefore important that, throughout, we retain an open mind about theoretical possibilities
and opportunities and it is in such a spirit of ‘open-mindedness’ that we present this paper.
Thus, we have chosen to conclude with a set of questions around which we hope further
discussion will take place.
1. In so far as we have described ‘cultures of learning’ here, how adequate or complete do
you consider those descriptions to be?
2. How might our use of the notion of ‘authentic learning site’ be usefully developed, given our
interests in gaining access to learning cultures?
3. What scope is there for exploring the apparent synergy between a Bourdieu-inspired and a
socio-cultural approach to culture?
11
4. Are the strategies that we have in mind for the TLC project adequate for the purposes of
uncovering and deepening understanding of cultures of learning?
Notes
[1]
‘Connectivity’ concerns, firstly, how activity connects (laterally) with context and with the
life experiences of the actors concerned and, secondly, how it connects (temporally) with
those experiences and activities which precede or follow it (see Bloomer, in press).
References
Bannon, L.J. and Bødker, S. (1991) ‘Beyond the Interface: encountering artifacts in use’ in: J.
Carroll (ed.) Designing Interaction: psychology at the human-computer interface, New York:
Cambridge University Press.
Beach, K. (1995) ‘Activity as a Mediator of Sociocultural Change and Individual Development: the
case of school-work transition in Nepal’ in Mind, Culture and Activity, 2, 4, pp 285-302.
Bereiter, C. (1994) ‘Constructivism, Socioculturalism, and Popper’s World 3’ in Educational
Researcher, 23, 7, pp 21-23.
Bloomer, M. (in press) ‘Young Lives, Learning and Transformation: some theoretical
considerations’ in Oxford Review of Education.
Bourdieu, P. (1977) Outline of a Theory of Practice, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bourdieu, P. (1989) in Wacquant, L. ‘Towards a reflexive sociology: A workshop with Pierre
Bourdieu’ in Sociological Theory, 7, pp 26-63.
Bourdieu, P. and Passeron, J-C. (1990) Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture
(second edition), London: Sage.
Bourdieu, P. and Wacquant, L. (1992) An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology, Cambridge: Polity
Press.
Brown, J.S., Collins, A. and Duguid, P. (1989) ‘Situated Cognition and the Culture of Learning’
in Educational Researcher, 18, 1, pp 32-42.
Bruner, J. (1996) The Culture of Education, London: Harvard University Press.
Charlesworth, S. (2000) 'Bourdieu, social suffering and working class life' in B. Fowler (ed)
Reading Bourdieu on Society and Culture, Oxford: Blackwell
Cole, M. (1988) ‘Cross-cultural Research in the Sociohistorical Tradition’ in Human
Development, 31, 3, pp 137-151.
Cole, M. (1996a) Cultural Psychology, Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.
Cole, M. (1996b) Culture in Mind, Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.
Collins, A., Brown, J.S. and Newman, S.E. (1989) ‘Cognitive Apprenticeship: teaching the
crafts of reading, writing and mathematics’ in: Resnick, L.B. (ed.) Knowing, Learning, and
Instruction: essays in honor of Robert Glaser, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Dewey, J. (1901) Contributions to Education No. 2: psychology and social practice, Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
Driver, R., Asoko, H., Leach, J., Mortimer, E. and Scott, P. (1994) ‘Constructing Scientific
Knowledge in the Classroom’ in Educational Researcher, 23, 7, pp 5-12.
Engeström, Y. (1987) Learning by Expanding: an activity-theoretical approach to
developmental research, Helsinki: Orienta-Konsultit.
Engeström, Y. (1990) Learning, Working and Imagining: twelve studies in activity theory,
Helsinki: Orienta-Konsultit.
Glasersfeld, E. von (1989) ‘Constructivism in Education’ in: T. Husén and N. Postlethwaite
(eds.) International Encyclopaedia of Education (supplementary volume), Oxford: Pergamon.
Grenfell, M. and James, D. (1998) Bourdieu and Education-Acts of Practical Theory, London:
Falmer.
12
Hodkinson, P., Sparkes, A.C. and Hodkinson, H. (1996) Triumphs and Tears: Young People,
Markets and the Transition from School to Work, London: David Fulton.
Hughes, M. and Greenhough, P. (1998) ‘Moving between communities of practice: children
linking mathematical activities at home and school’ Unpublished Paper.
James, D. (2000) 'Making the Graduate: Perspectives on Student Experience of Assessment in
Higher Education’ in A. Filer (Ed) Assessment - Social Practice and Social Product London:
Falmer Press.
John-Steiner, V. and Mahn, H. (1996) ‘Sociocultural Approaches to Learning and
Development: a Vygotskian framework’ in Educational Psychologist, 31, 4, pp 191-206.
Kuper, A. (1999) Culture - The Anthropologists' Account , Camb. MA: Harvard University Press
Lave, J. and Wenger, E. (1991) Situated Learning: legitimate peripheral participation,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Leont'ev, A.N. (1981) Problems of the Development of the Mind, Moscow: Progress
Publishers.
Mahar, C., Harker, R. and Wilkes, C. (1990) 'The basic theoretical position' in R. Harker, C.
Mahar and C. Wilkes (Eds) An Introduction to Work of Pierre Bourdieu - The practice of theory,
Basingstoke: Macmillan.
Maquet, P., Laureys, S., Peigneux, P., Fuchs, S., Petiau, C., Phillips, C., Aerts, J., Del Fiore,
G., Degueldre, C., Meulemans, T., Luxen, A., Franck, G., Van Der Linden, M., Smith, C. and
Cleeremans, A. (2000) ‘Experience-dependent changes in cerebral activation during REM
sleep, in Nature Neuroscience, 3, 8, pp 831-836.
Nardi, B.A. (ed.) (1996) Context and Consciousness: activity theory and human-computer
interaction, Cambridge MA: MIT Press.
Packer, M. (1993) ‘Away from Internalization’ in Forman, E.A., Minick, N. and Stone, C.A.
(eds.) Contexts for Learning: sociocultural dynamics in children’s development, New York:
Oxford University Press.
Penuel, W.R. and Wertsch, J.V. (1995) ‘Vygotsky and Identity Formation: a sociocultural
approach’ in Educational Psychologist, 30, 2, pp 83-82.
Piaget, J. (1950) The Psychology of Intelligence, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Ratner, C. (1996) ‘Activity Theory and Cultural Psychology’, online document:
http://www.humboldt.edu/~cr2/holly.htm
Renshaw, P.D. (1992) ‘The Sociocultural Theory of Teaching and Learning: implications for the
curriculum in the Australian context.’ Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the
Australian Association for Research in Education, Deakin University, Geelong, Victoria,
November.
Rodriguez, H. (1998) ‘Activity Theory and Cognitive Sciences’, online document:
http://www.nada.kth.se/~henrry/papers/ActivityTheory.html
Rogoff, B. (1990) Apprenticeship in Thinking: cognitive development in social context, New
York: Oxford University Press.
Scribner, S. (1984) ‘Studying Working Intelligence’ in: Rogoff, B. and Lave, J. (eds.) Everyday
Cognition: its development in social context, Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.
Vygotsky, L.S. (1978) Mind in Society, Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.
Vygotsky, L.S. (1981) ‘The Genesis of Higher Mental Functions’ in: Wertsch, J.V. (ed.) The
Concept of Activity in Soviet Psychology, New York: Sharp.
Wertsch, J.V. (1991) Voices of the Mind: a sociocultural approach to mediated action, London:
Harvester Wheatsheaf.
Wertsch, J.V. (1996) Mind as Mediated Action Paper presented at the University of Bristol
Graduate School of Education, Bristol UK.
Wertsch, J.V. (1998) Mind As Action, Oxford University Press Inc.: New York
Williams, R. (1976) Keywords- A Vocabulary of Culture and Society, London: Collins
13
14