The Experience of Young Adults in Transition: Making Connections

Research, Teaching and Learning: making connections in the education of adultsPapers from the 28th Annual SCUTREAConference

The experience of young adults in transition: making connections

Rob Lawy, Highlands College Jersey, UK

In this paper my aim is to foreground elements of intersubjectivity and difference in respect of young adults in transition. My intention is to pre-view a small part of my research in progress; on one hand to make transparent the connections between teaching and learning and on the other to show how research may contribute to the development of new knowing and understanding.

The Research

The research utilises qualitative data and has made use of the ‘grounded theory’ methodology first described by Glaser and Strauss (1968). The key to understanding grounded theory is to begin with an open mind and allow the problems and issues to emerge with the flow of the research: to allow the data, as far as humanly possible, to define the development and conduct of the processes of research and to use emergent categories and concepts as provisional markers in an unfolding story. Its commitment is to verstehen (Weber 1964). As such it is both cyclical and reflexive and as an ongoing principle relies on small-scale hypothesis testing as a means of generating new questions.

The interviews were informal and deliberately ‘casual’. Yet they were marked by ‘buoys’, which provided me with a structure upon which to frame questions. I would typically spend many hours listening to the tapes and reading through the transcripts so that I could get to know as much as possible about the actors as individuals - to allow me to educe the understanding and deeper structures of meaning which lie beneath action.

All the individuals, during the course of the research, changed in some way. Often these changes were overtly physical, however there were also other perceptual changes in their consciousness. My aim has been to map these changes and to discover through the emergent categories and concepts areas of intersubjectivity and difference between the actors in the flow of their lives. For example, in the initial interviews I was concerned with their biographical details, with their interests and with their attitudes to school and to learning itself. But I was also interested in their hopes, aspirations and expectations. In subsequent interviews I would check back on these to highlight any emergent changes in their unfolding careers (Hughes, 1937). Sometimes the changes were profound, however in other cases the changes were more incremental and evolutionary.

Transition

For young adults in late modernity transitions are more protracted, less certain and more ambiguous than they appeared in the 1950s and 1960s. They are longer journeys in which individuals have more potential and opportunity to act upon (Bloomer, 1997) their circumstances. Changing perceptions and changing social structures have contrived to create new and distinct contingencies, that is new risks and uncertainties, which are both local and global in their origins (Giddens, 1991; Beck 1992). The effects on individual young adults has been ambiguous. Although on the one hand young adults seem to have more choices, they are choices which have been socially prescribed and which, despite the expansion of educational opportunity, remain delimited by issues and identities such as class, race and gender. The rhetoric of choice is problematic.

Dispositions

One of the concepts intrinsic to the interview data is that concerned with the orientation of young adults towards action. In order to unravel these I have ‘borrowed’ from the contemporary literature a term which, as a dynamic equilibrium, emphasises the relations and positions existing between identities in a particular moment.

Dispositions (for example, Bourdieu 1976; 1990; Hodkinson 1996), provide a means through which actors make sense of the world and as such are embodied within understanding. This understanding applies longitudinally to their individual progression and the progression of others, and laterally in terms of the accounts of others at a similar moment in time. The notion that individuals are in some way disposed to particular circumstances or actions does not in any way imply that their dispositions are fixed. Young people may be disposed, within an evolving matrix, to certain actions and to the creation of meanings. These are portrayed as propensities or inclinations within consciousness which mediate between schemata and also between schemata and action; they include relations within specific domains or identities, and relations between the different aspects of their lives. In this way schemata are both social and individual: social in their relations between domains, and individual in their qualities portrayed within biography.

Whilst concerned with the perceptions and actions of individuals to knowledge and learning, dispositions are also reflexively integrated into a broader and no less complex narrative in which ‘personal identity, life-history, social and cultural contexts, actions and learning are inter-related’ (Bloomer and Hodkinson, 1997, 46). Nixon et al (1996), in emphasising this point that learning lies at the root of identity and agency, suggest succinctly:

Learning is becoming. It is an unfolding through which we learn not only what makes us unique - what individuates us - but how we can make that distinctive agency work in the world (p.49)

Individual actors may ‘act upon’ circumstances and opportunities and create their own careers, but in so doing they may invoke unintended outcomes which reflexively reshape meanings within the future-past as biography. This flow of action and the decision making associated and connected with it implicitly forms part of the flow of learning ( for example, Lave and Wenger, 1991; Nixon et al. 1996; Brown et al. 1989). It is not an abstracted cognitive process but an evolving set of social relations. Action and learning reside side-by-side within understanding and knowledge; they are in fluxion to the end of life, but in life are interwoven ‘as an evolving form of membership’(Lave and Wenger, 1991), with identity.

The practices and processes of education, in the strong sense described above, are dialectically related to one another. Whilst at their best they may empower individuals and provide them with the wherewithal to assume a greater degree of control over lifestyle options and choices, they may also, in a different moment, be no more than a peripheral consideration. For the present purpose I have chosen to make use of two exemplar cases to illustrate the connectedness of learning to structures and contexts which continually shift. I begin with a picture of Tom whose dispositions and understanding of the world around him were transformed following his move - on an Island scholarship in Year 12, to College in Wales.

Tom

Certainly in his first term at his new school, a transitional point in his life, Tom was disposed to the possibility of change. Abetted by more relaxed relations with both peers and teachers and at ease with himself he was, without fuss, able to reconfigure his existing schemata. On the back of his existing predispositions he consolidated his commitment to broader social values. This he achieved without risk by making use of his school as a safe environment to test out and rearrange new experiences and understandings (Beck, 1992). Tom began his second interview by immediately affirming the impact of his new environment. More specifically he acknowledged the broader influence of the International Baccalaureate as both a structure and a process on his understanding.

We do six subjects, three at higher level and three at a lower level. You’ve got to choose six different subjects but you have to choose a subject from a certain group in each category. So you have to choose a science and a mathematical subject, a humanity etc. My three highers at the moment - they’re different to what I chose initially - are European History, English Literature and Economics. Initially I chose Biology but changed to History. My three subsidiaries at the moment are Maths Biology and French.

Despite all the changes confronting him his main subject choices remained essentially the same as they would have been had he continued with his ‘A’ level studies. In this way they reflected his more enduring predispositions. Tom went on to describe in detail the structure and composition of the curriculum and of his learning; but as is illustrated below he interspersed this with insights in respect of his understanding, to clarify more fully the texture and composition within his prevailing horizons.

The curriculum’s a lot more interesting than what I was going to do here (in Jersey), with the three ‘A’ levels. There’s no uniform. All the teachers are on first name basis so the atmosphere is really relaxed. It’s brilliant, I really enjoy it but I think it only works because the students aren’t going to abuse the system.

Perhaps it was the speed and fluidity of his delivery but it is difficult to capture in the text alone his fullness and anticipation as he used the opportunity afforded in the interview to reflect upon, probe and unravel his emergent understanding. I asked Tom to describe his three main subjects and to explain the approaches used by the teachers. He began by talking about English and his more eclectic studies of World Literature.

We’re doing various texts. We’ve done stuff by Eugene Eunesco which is about the Theatre of the Absurd. We’ve got drama incorporated into our lessons. We have to study twenty-five books and five of these are World literature and twenty are English literature. […]We have very in depth discussions. …It’s good like when religion is incorporated into the text. We have so many religions and races represented in the class that you can get really good discussion.

This is education in its purest form; not only is there evidence of Tom being challenged at an appropriate intellectual level but he was so doing by drawing on the experiences, the knowledge and the resources of those around him. Tom was particularly taken by the teacher in Economics. It was his teacher’s personal stories and his ‘alternative’ rather than strictly bourgeois view of Economics which made the subject so interesting. He conveyed the excitement and drama of the world outside and in this way brought the subject to life in the classroom. So, rather than a ‘dry’ science concerned with aggregates and financial markets the subject was re-presented as a human science concerned with the potential and possibilities for ordinary people in the day-to-day transaction of their lives.

Teachers are important especially at the age around GCSEs and just before. After GCSEs I think you’re more or less following a direction. I think just before GCSEs teachers can influence which way you go. I find some teachers much more influential and better than others but you have to reach a certain age and maturity to realise. You may have to do a lot of work after the lesson.

It would be naïve to propose that Tom’s learning was confined to the classroom. In many respects it was his actions outside the classroom which contributed to his re-configured dispositions in the different domains of his life.

If I was at home I’d be a lot more ignorant about what was going on in the world. I read the Guardian I never did before. I was quite ignorant about politics. When I look back now I’m aware of what a bubble we live in here. It’s not what you know but who you know.

[…]I’ve only been here one term. I‘ve had all these new views and people. I think it’s brilliant, more places should incorporate the I.B. We have to choose a service to the community. We’ve got an inshore lifeboat station and a coast-guard station. We’ve had nine call-outs since I’ve been here. They say like the RAF section at (my previous school) was character building but it’s nothing like pulling bodies out of the sea.

There is a recognition in the narrative of the dialectical relations and tensions between Tom’s objective and perceptual concerns. Having spent his formative years in socially restricted networks, for example in school and in leisure, he was suddenly catapulted into uncertainty; that is into an environment in which his existing frame of reference and understanding was challenged. Within the space of a few months his position transformed to one which was much more fluid, where there was the promotion and realignment of his general development and education over his desire for the accompaniments and accessories associated with life in the late modern age. So a straightforward transition into post-compulsory education was transformed into an event which re-shaped his understanding.

Michelle

In Year 11 there were a number of similarities in the stories of Michelle and Tom particularly in relation to their perceived aspirations in respect of their vocational careers and lifestyles (Giddens, 1991). But their dispositions were positioned within different fields (Bourdieu, 1976; 1990) or contexts. School for Tom, in the sixth form, became a pre-eminent influence in his life. On the other hand, although Michelle continued with her education and training (GNVQ Advanced Business), at the FE college, it was regarded by her as abstracted and separate from her day-to-day life and interests. For her, college provided experiences distinct from the real world outside.

After the usual introductions I initiated my third interview with Michelle by showing her parts of the narrative which relayed directly words used by her in her previous interviews. She read these with some interest.

I’ve definitely changed. I don’t remember saying any of this. I can’t believe it came from me. I didn’t realise I had such a strong character. I’ve grown up. I’ve calmed down. I’ve got more control over myself. I think I was getting there last time and now I have.

Michelle did not wait for me to ask her about her experiences but moved on immediately and unsolicited to describe her experiences. I took this partly as an expression of her desire to control but also as a cathartic exercise in which she was expunging her feelings over the break-up of her parents marriage.

It was very sudden but not shocking. I was in the car with my mother when she told me Dad had left the house. It was late I’d just been out in town with friends.

She continued by describing how the experience brought her closer to her mother:

I cooked us a huge fry-up, an early morning breakfast. I’ve never seen her eat fried food. Our relationship changed, we became best friends. She became a different person.

Needing a holiday, it seems that her mother was happy for Michelle to invite her boyfriend to move temporarily into the house while she was away:

(John) moved into the house and things were fine at first but when my mother returned she was back to the old person. We argued, my boyfriend couldn’t put up with it - me being so upset and crying to him and him in the middle. He went back home.

With the situation deteriorating at home, and following some negotiation with her parents individually, she moved into a flat shared with her boyfriend. Perceptually this involved the construction of new identities and roles embedded in the pressing and immediate concerns of her day-to-day life. Rents are not cheap and her boyfriend’s job did not generate a sufficient income for two people. It was however now the summer vacation and Michelle managed to find herself a day job to complement her regular baby-sitting work.

I worked in the summer and earned quite a bit of money. And I’ve got a baby-sitting job where I can earn £20 a night. I get there at seven at night and go home at two in the morning. I get to do what I want. When I baby-sit I study - which is two nights a week.

Michelle talked with relish about how, in her summer job, she was valued by her employer:

I was employed as a computer inputter and by my third week there I was not only a computer inputter but a secretary for two guys that I was working for. …I learned so much and I realised that I did want to go into finance for my degree at university. It made me put it into practice and I really did enjoy it.

[…] The work experience here was not the same. I loved it but talking to the lawyer - the younger lawyer, made me realise that I did not want to be a lawyer.

I was mildly surprised by her insistence that she was going to pursue her educational career. This created a dilemma, between her current desires and achievements and her aspirations in the future for security, self-sufficiency and ultimately control. Moreover, she wanted to continue with a university education as proof of her capabilities but also to achieve what she envisioned as greater control of her own destiny:

I’m not taking a year out. Happiness is what I’ve been trying to get at. My boyfriend makes me very happy. We’ve agreed we’re not going to split up. I can get a degree - a piece of paper which says: “This girl’s not stupid.”

[…]I want to go to Bristol (University of the West of England), because it sounds like a nice place. My Dad’s over the moon.

She was seeking to reconcile a dilemma; on one side there was the independence sought by her; yet this had arrived almost too quickly and she craved time to join with her contemporaries and perhaps ‘grow’ more slowly into her adult status: