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Dieter Nittel
Biography – culture – learning: Layout of an
integrative analysis concept
Slide 1
Ladies and Gentlemen, dear colleagues!
1. Problem outline and overview of the discourse
The fact that we are meeting here in an international
conference and people from very different parts of Asia
and Europe have gathered here can easily lead to
misunderstandings because biography – culture –
learning are terms that can have a vast amount of
different meanings and can thus be interpreted in
various ways. Every one of us has different ideas of
what biography, culture and learning actually mean.
Imagine we were all from the same country in Asia or
the same country in Europe. Even under the
circumstances of cultural homogeneity it would be
important to first create a consensus of what we are
1
speaking of here today. There is not just intercultural
multilingualism
but
also
the
phenomenon
of
innercultural multilingualism! In order to reduce the risk
of misunderstandings a little I want to give a short
definition of the terminology. What basic idea of
biography – culture – learning am I presuming?
Slide 2 and 3
What else can you expect of this discourse? When we
have the trifecta of “culture, biography, learning” in
front of us, the search for connections would probably
open up a sheer endless amount of combinations in the
relations of the three elements. The obvious connection
would be that learning is a socially desired medium
through which actual persons adopt culture in the course
of their biography and indeed: learning is the most
prominent, powerful and at the same time inconspicuous
medium of adopting culture in the course of the lifetime.
Now we could take this thesis as an opportunity for a
deeper reflection on education philosophy. Of course we
could go even further and ask ourselves what the much
2
quoted master thinkers Pierre Bourdieu, Michel
Foucault, Niklas Luhmann and Jürgen Habermas would
say about this subject.
However, another way seems equally instructive as the
just mentioned option. In the second step of my
depiction I am looking for an empirically usable concept
to grasp the connection of culture – biography –
learning in all its complexity. Therefore the following
questions are to be answered. What categories can help
us to better understand the complicated relation in an
analytical way? How can we categorize the phenomena
and observations from interviews of life histories and
respectively autobiographical-narrative interviews in
order to better understand and explain the change of
biographies in a cultural context? And what is equally
important: until now the dominant direction of inquiry
was to look for the impression cultural factors had on
the biographical processes in the medium of individual
learning. Why do we not reverse this direction of
3
inquiry? In what way do we conduct biography research
to do justice to the fact that particular subjects are not
only influenced by the cultural context but in fact
influence the cultural development themselves and thus
leave their mark in history? The relation between
individual biographies and history is not one sided –
they influence each other.
Slide 4
2. Culture – Biography – Learning: Attempt to give a
short definition
Slide 5
Firstly the term “culture”, it originates from the Latin
word Cultura which means “tilling, tending or
farming.” This word has a strong relation to the word
Colere which can be translated as “fostering or
cultivating.” In principal culture includes everything
that
mankind
creates
through
formation
and
construction in contrast to what is given to him by
nature. The entirety of what has been created through
4
redesign can therefore rise to a cultural achievement
meaning religious, moral, economical, scientific and
technical
constructs.
Culture
can
be
equally
characterized as stability and change: “the individually
as well the collectively created works and values are
predetermined through institutionalization as well as
traditions but they are at the same time – and not least
because of a changed environment – undergoing
constant change.” (Krüger-Potratz 2011, 253) Two
dissociations that have been very important in the past
are not playing any role to speak of anymore in the
German discussion, one being the dissociation from
nature the other from civilization. This shows that not
only culture but also our perception of it is constantly
changing. The duality of culture and civilization that
was predominant during the days of glory of the
educated citizens is disparate to the Angloamerican
perception of a structural similarity of both aspects.
Therefore culture and civilization is thought of as a
gradual transition. In the same way the animate and
inanimate nature is not viewed so much as a hostile
5
counterpart, as a place of aggressive domination of
culture anymore but as a parting line and condition for
the possibility of cultural artifacts. The predominant
culture strives for a reconciliation of culture and nature!
In my own understanding of culture I am leaning
strongly towards Clifford Geertz’ (2003) generally
known ethnological perception which says that culture
should always be thought of in different ways and
strangeness should not be considered a negative
hindrance but a resource for understanding. In Geertz’
view all societies can in principal be read like texts that
allow their own interpretation, regardless whether its socalled primitive or highly complex western societies. As
is well known Geertz stands for a semiotic, open
understanding of culture: it can be described with the
nice metaphor of the “self-spun web of meanings”
which is immediately constructed and deconstructed by
the people through their interpretations.
Slide 6
6
With regard to the next term I suggest making a
distinction in the definition between biography and
course of life. What is the difference between course of
life and biography? The course of life includes the
entirety of all subjective and nonsubjective events,
turning points and phases between birth and death of a
person. The course of life is an institution in modern
societies. After all most careers, professional changes
and interruptions in the life cycle are normalized and
subject to social controls. In contrast to that the
biography describes the respective organization, the
subjective acquisition of the course of life. In the
meantime the term biography which is closely linked to
the development of the civic society has distanced itself
quite far from its original meaning derived from the
Greek “bios” (life) and “graphein” (writing). Biography
today refers to written and oral texts that connect the
experiences and events of a past lifetime to a
meaningful whole. In science “biography” is used to
make the interdependent entanglements of subjective
life story on the one hand and the observable events of
7
the course of life on the other available to a scientific
description. The biography thus marks that specific
cultural location where the relation between “self” and
“world,” the relation between subjective and objective
reality is most obvious. Here the individual always
presents itself as member of society and the member of
society reveals itself as an individual. Biography is a
cultural construct, an answer to the anthropological
constant of the finitude of human existence. At the same
time biography is an important resource of subjectivity:
the expectation of society to have an unmistakable
identity can only be fulfilled through the development
of a biographical identity. (Goffman 1980)
Slide 7
Last but not least we come to the term learning. I myself
understand learning in the same way as the Danish
pedagogue Knud Illeris (2010) that is to say as an
integrative process that includes the elements of
incentive, content and interaction. However, learning is
also the result of an inner acquisition process imparted
8
through communication or throuh the media that always
shows individual as well as social references.
In my view the starting point of every substantial
learning theory is the experience: “coming to know
something new means (…) learning. This is the course
in which the confidence in pre-rational conventions is
disturbed and the unfamiliar intrudes into the familiar.”
(Meyer-Drawe 2008, 14) Human experiences include
the contradictory units of intentional and conditional
acting as well as the constant interaction between active
acquisition and uncalculated exposure to external
circumstances. Few theorists have occupied themselves
with these aforementioned dualities of aspects as much
as John Dewey. (cp. Dewey 1994, 1995) He described
experience as a specifically human kind of openness
towards the world where the “what” as well as the
“how” of experience are equally important. Based on
the term experience learning is not universally
connected with happiness, pleasure and fun. Even more
than that learning is not automatically and in all cases
9
adding to a positive enrichment of the individual life
and thus to the creation of self insight and knowledge of
the world. This aspect was why I intensely dealt with
the learning processes of people with life-threatening
diseases during my last research project.
A modern pedagogic understanding of learning depends
on a reflexive attitude towards subject as well as
methodology. We can take into account the motivational
and emotional factors meaning the cognitive aspects of
learning as well as the environmental factors of
neurological
and
biological
learning
dimensions.
However, a stronger tendency towards a holistic and
multidisciplinary approach brings us ever closer to the
boundaries of empirical research because the thusly
created complexity of the subject can not be managed
anymore just with the proven methods of research. Still
there is also the danger of a too selective and positivistic
approach in the sense of reducing the learning process
just to one factor. As is usually the case the trick is to
10
find a middle ground thus we follow neither a holistic
sense of the term learning nor do we use a constricted
understanding of learning that is reduced to just the
observable behavior.
Slide 8
3. Concept for understanding autobiographical narrative
interviews with regard to cultural and pedagogical
learning aspects
The following concept was developed in the tradition of
the Grounded Theory with close regard to the
sociological biography research of Fritz Schütze.
(“narration analysis method”) It is supposed to help
examining text phenomena that have been derived from
autobiographical narrative interviews with respect to
their life story depth and get a better grasp of the
connection between subject and societal structure.
11
The analysis tools presented have their roots in a
completed
project.
(Nittel/Seltrecht
2013)
Unfortunately, due to time considerations I cannot be
more specific. (Detailed information can be found on
the
project’s
website
www.biographie-krankheit-
lernen.de) In general one can characterize four levels of
analysis that are important in order to understand the
organic connection between culture – biography –
learning under the aspect of the creative power of
individuals:
Slide 9
a) Process-oriented learning dimension
b) Structural learning dimension
c) Modes of learning
d) Context of learning
Slide 10
- a) The analysis level of process-oriented learning
dimension takes up the concept of process structures in
the course of life. (Schütze 1981, Riemann/Schütze
12
1992, Nittel 1992) We define these process structures in
the course of life as the basic attitude of the subject
towards their own life history, the experiences in that
time and the corresponding personal identity. What we
have here then are rudimental states of experiences that
are supposed to link subjective experiences and cultural
expectations between which a long time has passed and
give them meaning. In my opinion all highly developed
industrial cultures show the following four pivotal basic
attitudes
towards
the
biographical
course
of
experiences.
Behind these institutional expectation patterns lie life
cycle patterns of starting a family, marriage/parenthood
and “growing old” as well as careers in classical
organizations. This is the order of the course of life to
which social scientists generally refer to if they want to
underline the fact that the idea of a self reliant lifestyle
of the civic individual needs refinement in various parts.
This includes among others the preschool, school, post
13
school and university education, advanced training,
careers in politics or the business world and other
societal functions. (sports, media) The state and welfare
state programs have a decisive part in such institutional
expectation patterns as one could see in retirement
schemes and similar turning points. Through these
process structures the most rudimentary cultural
integration is implemented. The institutional expectation
pattern corresponds to the managed learning; it has a
more or less bureaucratic context and takes place in an
organized fashion with the involvement of specific staff.
The institutions then expect that the taught knowledge is
basically identical to the acquired knowledge meaning
that teaching and learning are closely connected.
Biographical action schemes as a second process
structure require the basic assumption of a possible
mostly self-determined mandate of individual fortune in
life. The idealization that precedes this process
structure, namely that the subject is at the same time
14
master of its own life story, is probably not equally
distinct
in
western
and
eastern
cultures.
The
remembered attitude towards the individual life story in
this process structure is an active one at any rate. The
individual plans to build a house, establish a company
or to emigrate to a foreign country and these doings are
synonymous with biographical projects that give life
meaning. These long-term action schemes normally
show a planning, a preparation, an implementation and
an evaluation phase. Biographical action schemes can
be characterized by a close relation with targeted
learning which generally means learning outside of
institutions in order to overcome acute knowledge or
behavior deficits which have to be resolved so that
action limitations can be removed. Targeted learning is
in most cases self-organized.
The third process structure constitutes the trajectories of
suffering. Here the individual is afflicted by a series of
powerful
events
and
“calamities”
for
example
15
addictions,
burnout
phenomena
or
long-term
unemployment. The afflicted is overwhelmed by the
specific problem or crisis constellation so that the up to
that
point
intentional
dominant
orientation
biographical
is
not
lifestyle
just
with
temporarily
destabilized but lastingly disturbed. The usual and
dominant normality of targeted and intentional acting is
replaced by the logic of the conditional way of acting.
The familiar everyday culture that has protected the
individual like a cocoon becomes alien, it does not offer
a safe space anymore and instead undermines
everything that has up to then characterized the stability
of life. The protagonists feel pushed and are no longer
the creators of their life story. The trajectory of
suffering is linked to troubled learning which deals
exclusively with the search for more or less optimal
strategies to cope with something and is focused on the
here and now without taking into account any long-term
perspectives.
16
The biographical change marks the fourth process
structure.
It
development
has
as
certain
can
be
similarities
observed
with
with
the
artists.
Pedagogues tend to be especially interested in this
process structure because here the protagonists profit
from the treasures and riches of their surrounding
culture which they process, absorb and change
intensively in an act of self-empowerment. Creative
metamorphoses of biographical identity are basically
increased education processes that bring forth the
hidden creative potentials of the subjects in these
biographies. They experience such a vast progress in
learning that they themselves are wondering about their
development. Creative metamorphoses of biographical
identity are linked to creative learning for which high
intensity, density and its longevity are typical. The
learning motivation is strongly intrinsic and the
individual abilities and resources can fully evolve
through the dynamic of learning.
17
The mapping that was just given does, however, not at
all mean that these process-oriented learning dimensions
are also the key to specific learning experiences. The
categories of managed, targeted, troubled and creative
learning are creating a space of subjunctive experiences
but they do not at all allow for a precise temporal,
spatial, factual and social determination of learning
phenomena themselves. The category of subjunctive
learning space with regard to the process-oriented
learning dimension means that for example in the case
of a trajectory of suffering the probability for the
occurring of a troubled learning process is greater than
the probability for the occurring of one of the other
three patterns. During the analysis procedure the process
structures of the course of life are gathered step by step
so that the thus identified learning dimensions allow for
a sequential view of the learning. This gives us a first
idea in which phase of life an individual has learned,
under the influence of which specific process structure
and with which inner attitude. Thus it is possible to
answer “when questions,” at which point in the life
18
story can we expect the dominance of a certain processoriented learning dimension and it what way does this
circumstance influence the subsequent fortune in life?
Slide 11
- b) The level of structural learning dimensions deals
with the central coherences of the real world and the
question “what is being learned?” In contrast to the
level of process-oriented learning dimension the
phenomena in the structural learning dimension can be
more specifically determined in a spatial, factual, social
and temporal way. Here we can draw upon a
strategically important difference pattern of our culture,
namely the distinction between knowledge, behavior
and identity. Admittedly the situational acquisition of
new knowledge is rarely the subject of autobiographical
narrative interviews but it is still important to react to
these phenomena as well. It seems sensible to
distinguish between the acquisition of scientific,
professional, esoteric, artistic, religious and everyday
life knowledge. If people contract a life-threatening
19
disease and are confronted with typical diagnoses they
often come in contact with incomprehensible medical
terms. They are wont to try and look up these
unanswered questions on the internet, ask the doctor or
consult advice literature. However, typically the
situational acquisition of new knowledge in the course
of life is not reflected upon and thus will not show up in
an inquiry via interview. However, the case is
completely different when it comes to lasting changes in
everyday
practice,
lifestyle
and/or
residential
circumstances. If specific diseases demand a change in
diet, the complete abandonment of alcohol and nicotine
or even the modification of the house then these events
become relevant to the real world and will very much
come up in biographical self-descriptions. This is
especially true for the change in social and personal
identity. The modification of identity formation includes
the learning of new roles as well as the changing of
individual
theories.
Autobiographical
narrative
interviews usually allow us to make conclusions about
these kinds of changes. The lasting adoption of the
20
patient role that is common for chronic diseases poses
such a constellation of increased learning that is relevant
to the identity. The key role here plays the
transformation from the temporary feature “having a
disease” to the permanent state “being sick.”
Slide 12
- c) This brings us to the modes of learning which
covers the sphere of “how do we learn?” In the
occidental Christian culture we tend to look at learning
in terms of failed or successful and to answer questions
about learning with “yes” or “no.” Pedagogues should
not be content with a “black or white” distinction
because the matter is very complex. The presented
concept is characterized by a high sensitivity towards
the grey area of learning. The distinction between new
learning,
unlearning,
relearning
and
non-learning
corresponds to this point of view.
New Learning here means an acquisition process that
has function of surprise and information for the subject
and thus constitutes something new. When you see it
21
like that new learning correlates with what we generally
call “learning” in the scientific discourse, namely the
change in knowledge and ability under the influence of
new experiences. The relearning does not have this just
mentioned element of surprise. The accumulation of
experiences does not reach a qualitatively new level.
Relearning is based on the fact that many learning
processes can be described as the restructuring of an
existing repertoire of knowledge or pattern of abilities
and skills. A level of learning that has already been
reached is applied to new activity and subject areas
without something genuinely new taking place. The
category unlearning is doing justice to the fact that
learning is always a “process of origin and future”
(Meyer-Drawe 2008) because the gaining of a new
perspective always comes with the loss of an old one.
We are unlearning or forgetting once acquired
knowledge as well as certain everyday routines once
they are not needed anymore. In the end unlearning is
owed to the fact that our memory has a limited capacity.
We also consider non-learning a mode of learning and it
22
can be based on a conscientious decision of the subject
to not use a learning option: “I do not need this
knowledge/skill.” The not wanting to learn and the not
being able to learn stand on opposite sides. The mode
of not being able to learn can be derived here if a
conditional relevance for the possibility of knowledge
and skill increase from the perspective of the
generalized other is present but this expectation is not
fulfilled.
Slide 13
- d) The concept of theoretical learning to document
long-term learning processes during the course of life is
complemented through the subcategory of formal, nonformal and informal learning context that is well-known
from international literature. This level touches on the
where-question that is interesting from a cultural
sociological point of view, in which institutions are the
learning processes embedded? Which places are we
looking at here? Formal learning takes place in classic
education and training institutions that are specifically
23
supposed to have a selection function and document
attendance with a certificate (schools, universities).
Non-formal learning also takes places in institutions of
the education system but without the attendance having
to be documented by a certificate. Advanced education
and social education in particular are areas of nonformal learning. Informal learning describes all those
learning
locations
without
pedagogic
goals
and
intentions that is to say all contexts beyond the
education system.
Slide 14
The four examination levels described can be bundled
up into one biographical learning portfolio. In doing so
it seems sensible to begin with the reconstruction of the
process-oriented learning dimension and compare it
with the structural learning dimension. Can any patterns
that are universal be discovered? Are there regularities
coming up such as process-oriented learning dimensions
that have been proven dominant correspond to certain
form of knowledge or that they fit a specific direction of
24
rebuilding the identity formation. While the assignment
of certain text passages to certain learning contexts is
relatively unproblematic (and could therefore be
integrated in the just described process) the application
of learning modes is far more difficult. The newlearning,
unlearning,
relearning
and
non-learning
obviously evade direct observation. Still this part of the
analysis can make a constructive contribution: in what
capacity does non-learning add to the stabilization of a
social identity? In which phases of the biography has
new-learning been functional or dysfunctional? In what
way do learning modes have to be arranged so that they
can make a contribution to the overcoming of a life
story crisis? The difficulties that come up once in a
while in the use of this analysis tool are due to the basic
fact that we depend on hermeneutic operations of
understanding in the biographical analytic learning
research and we cannot restrict ourselves to just
observe. A biographical learning portfolio can only
claim to be complete if the resources of all the
perspectives of analysis have been applied.
25
Slide 15
4. What learning profile do important figures of our
culture show?
Slide 16
In the beginning of my discourse I hinted at the
possibility of reversing the question. The question “how
does the cultural condition influence our biographies
under the aspect of learning?” has been adequately
discussed and answered in modern biography research.
But what kind of cultural creative power do singular
individuals have? To what extent does learning play a
role there? Here we are looking at a very specific type
of person, one that is distinguished and publicly active.
These are current innovators, inventors as well as other
central personalities from the world of art, science,
politics and economy.
My core hypothesis is that on the one hand with this
group of people changing processes of self-identity
26
combined with biographical action schemes are
dominant.
Slide 17
That would support the idea of a mutually enhancing
alliance
between
targeted
and
creative
learning
processes. Here “order” (i.e. a targeted/systematic
learning
behavior)
and
“disorder”
(i.e.
a
creative/spontaneous learning behavior) are making a
contradictory combination. The most recent statement
suggests an indifference or at least a certain amount of
disregard towards the official school and university
system. But certainly not all famous personalities have a
school and university biography like Steven Jobs, Bill
Gates or other unconventional personalities.
Slide 18
On the other hand another combination of process
structures is to be expected: namely the connection of
biographical action schemes and institutionalized
expectation and procedure patterns. This combination
27
implies an alliance between managed and targeted
learning as well as a mutual enhancement of the both.
Whenever a predominance of institutional expectation
and procedure patterns and thus a rather adaptive
learning behavior can be registered it is always
accompanied by increased self-organized learning in an
informal context. On the level of biographical process
structures and the reactions of the social environment
we in general deal with positively sanctioned social
deviations.
However many biographies of influential people are not
straight. They are not at all free from trajectories of
suffering. These processes of suffering are normally
temporary. This and the intensity of the trajectory
allows the afflicted to experience the confrontation with
life story crises as a challenge, even standing as a test
and in the course of overcoming them develop specific
strengths and competences. Not the confrontation with
crises but the specific coping with them create wisdom
28
and strenuousness. The trajectories of suffering are
generally dimensioned in a way that they allow an
overcoming of the crisis in learning mode and are in the
end functional for the respective life project. What can
we say about modes of learning? It seems that an
important factor for success-oriented acting is not so
much the fixating on new-learning or the avoidance of
not-learning but a certain mix of new-learning,
relearning, not-learning and unlearning.
Slide 19
Especially with entrepreneurs – research done by
graduate students has shown this (Siewert-Kölle 2013) –
we can observe that strategically important skills and
abilities have long been learned in the course of
anticipated
socialization
or
that
biographical
dispositions towards this learning mix have made it
easier to acquire entrepreneurial qualifications. Constant
new-learning according to needs is required same as the
constant unlearning of needless knowledge. All the
while the unlearning is consistently put to the use of the
29
biographical project so that this mechanism also
benefits the focusing on the important things.
It is common knowledge that learning always takes
place in a societal context and never isolated. The
enormous creativity and capability of the circle of
people we considered here needs opportunity structures
in the institutions and openings towards the social
systems of economy, law, politics and science in order
to
fully
develop
their
potentials.
The
implied
conveyance between biographical development and
organizational
development
describes
the
final
transition from individual to collective learning.
Slide 20
The precise description of this transition can, however,
not be done here, that is a completely different story to
be told another time!
Thank you for your attention!
Slide 21
30
Literature:
Dewey, John (1994): Erziehung durch und für
Erfahrung. Stuttgart (2. Auflage).
Dewey, John
Frankfurt/M.
(1995):
Erfahrung
und
Natur.
Geertz, C. (2003): Dichte Beschreibungen. Beiträge
zum Verstehen kultureller Systeme, Frankfurt, Main
Goffman, E. (1980): Rahmenanalyse. Frankfurt, Main
Illeris, K. (2010): Lernen verstehen. Bedingungen
erfolgreichen Lernens, Bad Heilbrunn
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München
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333-358
31
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A.
(2013):
Biographische
Rekonstruktion von Prozessen der Existenzgründung
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32