Fergal Finnegan

Connecting Bourdieu, Winnicott, and Honneth: Understanding the experiences of non-traditional learners through an interdisciplinary lens

Abstract This paper connects Bourdieus concepts of habitus, dispositions and capital with a psychosocial analysis of how Winnicotts psychoanalysis and Honneths recognition theory can be of importance in understanding how and why non-traditional students remain in higher education. Understanding power relations in an interdisciplinary way makes connections—by highlighting intersubjectivity—between external social structures and subjective experiences in a biographical study of how non-traditional learner identities may be transformed through higher education in England and the Republic of Ireland.

Developing the Theory of Perspective Transformation.

Mezirow’s theory of perspective transformation has proved to be a great asset to the scholarship of adult education and has provided a solid theoretical base for understanding complex learning phenomena. However, in the discussions surrounding Mezirow’s work, a certain “stuckness” appears which we think is unproductive. Critiques of Mezirow are often repeated, secondhand or thirdhand, causing important issues and tensions to become simplified and dichotomized, which causes complex aspects of the theory to lose the nuance that a good theory provides. This article draws on recent contributions to the literature in order to elaborate on the theory of perspective transformation in light of these recurring critiques. In so doing, we introduce three key concepts to the lexicon of perspective transformation: continuity, intersubjectivity, and emancipatory praxis. For each, we address the underlying omission or weakness in Mezirow’s theory and offer revised conceptualizations of the theory.

‘We’re as good as anybody else’: a comparative study of working-class university students’ experiences in England and Ireland

This article is based on a comparative study of working-class students’ experiences in English and Irish higher education. It highlights the lack of comparative studies on this topic based on qualitative research and why filling this gap is important in understanding access and widening participation. Drawing on biographical interviews with 139 people in a range of elite and non-elite institutions, the article discusses similarities as well as some differences between the data from the two countries in terms of class, identity and how working-class students view and value higher education. It maps out how the research relates to recent debates over social class and outlines the theoretical implications of these findings.

A Critical Journey Towards Lifelong Learning: Including Non-Traditional Students in University

While a great deal of progress has been made towards increasing non-traditional students in Irish higher education (HE), this achievement is tempered by the very low base from which this task commenced. A once elite system of third-level education has evolved into an increasingly diver- sified and flexible network of institutions of mass education. The overall rate of admission has risen from 20% of school leavers in 1980 to 46% in 1998, to 55% in 2004 and to over 60% in 2007 (Byrne et al, 2008, p.33). The gov- ernment (HEA, 2008a) is committed to further increasing participation up to 2015 and in this way address a range of social issues and disadvantage (DES, 2000, 2001; NOEA, 2005, 2007, 2008; Skilbeck and O’Connell, 2000), and the HEA in 2008 set a key national target of 72% entry to higher education by 2020.

Making Hope and History Rhyme: Reflections on Popular Education and Leadership Following a Visit to Highlander.

This article draws on our backgrounds as adult educators in Ireland and our experience at Highlander in 2014. We review our development as critical educators, exposed to deep inequalities in Irish society. We explore role of popular education in fostering social change, beginning with the commitment to equality and freedom, whereby, we produce emancipatory knowledge with students and participants. This learning process is more explicitly political and collective than individual psychological concepts of learning. The Highlander experience provided the opportunity to interrogate related assumptions that underpin the concept of leadership, pointing toward a more collective and political framework. The article uses feminist critical theories as lenses for this interrogation, holding that equality and freedom are mutually constitutive principles of critical practice. Popular educators foster critical thinking and reflection. The Other’s Tools, drawing on the precept that traditional thinking reinforces the status quo. These critical thinking tools are vital to question the assumptions that power and control in society as individualized or de-politicized. We take this learning into our practice in Ireland.