Univ. Prof. Dr. Heide von Felden, Johannes Gutenberg Universität Mainz, Germany
HOW CAN LEARNING PROCESSES BE METHODICALLY DOCUMENTED OVER A
LIFETIME?
1. Introduction
Learning processes over a lifetime cannot be observed, nor can they be derived as processes of
learning from learning results. The people learning are the only source of information about their lives,
and subsequently also about learning in their lives.
Now, it is nevertheless also the case that the manner of learning is often not consciously present. If a
person is asked, “How have your learned in your life?”, they will answer by repeating what they have
heard about learning or what they have discovered themselves about their own learning. Such
answers might provide clues, but they raise the question of whether in such a process socially
desirable answers play a role, because the individuals answering want to present themselves in a
positive light and to avoid displaying their learning problems, learning resistances or learning
difficulties. The idea is to find a method of also reading a person’s statements about their own life that
is contrary to their own intentions.
2. On the Narration Structural Process According to Fritz Schütze
This is also the opinion of Fritz Schütze, who is interested in analyzing the meaning of life stories on
the basis of their formal structures, lingual symbols and their content, while not viewing the content of
the statements alone as their meaning. The objects of Fritz Schütze’s analyses are transcripts of
narrative interviews, i.e., the written text of an impromptu account of the life story serves as the object
of analysis. Behind this is the idea that formal structures of the text virtually reveal subconscious or
preconscious contents of what has been said, and that what has actually been said is to be evaluated
as less intentional and strategic in terms of a desired answer. In order to guarantee such speech in the
most ideal manner possible, some specific conditions must be fulfilled.
The fact that above all narrative, not directive-orientated interviews should be conducted has
essentially two reasons: a) The persons involved have the highest level of freedom to establish
relevancies for themselves. The people themselves decide what is said when, thereby themselves
constructing their own biographies in the shape of a formation of correlations. b) The persons should
keep their accounts as narrative as possible, avoiding description or reflection because, according to
Schütze’s opinion, people are closest to past events when they depict them less from their subsequent
reflections. In the ideal scenario, the accounts should be impromptu, i.e., accounts that are not
prepared or told in a particular interest.
Fritz Schütze further assumes that certain narrative compulsions that are unintentional but are
nonetheless used have an effect on such an impromptu account: The compulsion to give the narrative
a structure, the compulsion to provide detail, to establish relevance and to condense (cp. Kallmeyer
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und Schütze 1977, pg. 188ff). This means that a story that is started is told until its end and features a
structure, that a story should be comprehensible and consequently certain details have to be provided
and that the storyteller establishes focal points and relevancies in order to keep the listener’s attention
longer.
As a further formal order in such texts, Schütze has established that each narrative is oriented on
fundamental “Cognitive Figures”. With this he means a) the person who is the autobiographer who has
experienced the event and his/her relationships to other persons, b) the event and experience chain,
c) situations, living environments and social worlds and as conditional and orientation frameworks for
social processes, and d) the overall structure of the life story (cp. Schütze, 1984, pg. 81). These
“Cognitive Figures” can be found in all narrative texts and they form a type of formal frame for life
stories.
Within the context of the interlinking of events and experiences, Schütze has developed four principal
postures as heuristics toward life story experiences: 1. Biographical Plot. 2. Institutional Sequential
Pattern of the Life Story. 3. Sequential Curves. 4. Transformation Processes (cp. Schütze 1981, pg.
92). Schütze furthermore recommends that the narrative passages of the interview be evaluated
separately from the descriptive and argumentative passages in order to be able to compare the two
types of depiction with one another. In this manner, abstract evaluations which often only frame an
earlier experience later in life are set in relation with the accounts.
The narrators open up insights in their stories on their views of the societal relationships, each of
which they perceive individually. As such, the evaluation of narrative interviews provides categories for
processing the significance that social relationships and societal norms or attributes have for the
persons. Biography is a construction that comprises subject and structure, and which enables
statements to be made regarding societal performances and individual self-will (cp. von Felden 2003,
pg. 125ff and 131f).
3. On the Application of Schütze’s Recommendations in the Analysis of Learning Processes
Schütze’s recommendations for the analysis of the content and form of biographical texts are aimed at
ascertaining the case structure. Depending on the research question, the case structure is consulted
in different ways for answering the question. One particular challenge is posed by the research
question, “How do people learn over the course of a lifetime?”, because it has to do with internal
processes that are revealed in narrative storytelling. The question is how to utilize Schütze’s
instruments in relation to this topic.
On the one hand, Schütze enables analysis of the person’s layers of experience on the basis of the
sequence of the process structures. In their narratives over the course of their lives, the attitudes of
the autobiographer toward different phases of their lives change with the result that the experience
layering is depicted in the succession of the process structures, particularly in their transitions.
Secondly, time-related dimensions can be ascertained from the material. The lingual structure reveals
how and when a person thought about a correlation. There have possibly been changes that suggest
a learning process.
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The appraisal of the overall structure of the case on the basis of processing the Cognitive Figures also
helps in depicting the learning dispositions and determining the respective learning habitus of the
person (cp. Herzberg, 2004). For example, is the subject a fearful person who is insecure in their
dealings with unfamiliar things? Is the person influenced by a middle-class intellectual level in their
educational aspirations? Does the person lead an extravagant life or a simple one?
4. On the Applied Learning Concept
Of essential importance in the appraisal of learning processes over a lifetime is the learning concept
that is applied to the material and with the help of which one seeks to discover more about something
in particular from the text. In qualitative research, one is aware of the fact that it is only possible to see
something in the text when one is conscious of the perspective of the subject – in other words, seeing
it through their eyes. I.e., one can only recognise what one has a notion of. The fact that one also
wants to derive something new from processing the text is definitely a problem in this regard, which
nonetheless adheres to every hermeneutic interpretation. The issue here is refining the rough concept
of learning through empirical observations. As regards the learning concept, I refer primarily to the
definition by Göhlich /Zirfas (2007):
“Learning describes the changes in one’s relation to values and oneself as well as the relation to
others which occur not on the basis of inherent dispositions, but rather due to at least basally
deliberated experiences and the correspondingly valid changes in possibilities for deeds and conduct,
patterns of analysis and interpretation and for taste and value structures that are capable of being
experienced by the person learning in their physical totality; in short, learning is the experience reflex
of the person who is learning to the effect of obtained specific knowledge and ability” (Göhlich / Zirfas,
2007, pg. 17).
Michael Göhlich (2007) refers to a significant difference between learning and experience: “[…]
Between experience and learning [there is] a fragile, spiral-shaped relationship. Experience provides –
in an equivalence of activity and passivity – the dynamic double which consists of the lifeworldly and
systematic past that is processed in learning, in particular by means of attention to negativity, […] and
which is ultimately guided in a new way into becoming an autonomous experience that can be
remembered” (Göhlich, 2007, pg. 198).
In summarized form, the issue is the changes that occur on at least the basis of deliberated
experiences, whereby just as with experiences, correlations in learning guide the subsequent learning.
The task is therefore to identify experiences in the text that are fundamentally deliberated. In most
cases this has already occurred by means of the choice of what is to be conveyed in narrative,
because by the ‘telling’ itself it already achieves the level of the experience. Learning occurs at this
point in that this experience is processed and leads to a conclusion.
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5. Examples of the Analysis of Learning Processes
I would like to demonstrate the manner in which one can analyse these learning processes in
autobiographical material on the basis of a few brief examples.
5. 1 Time Levels in the Text: Wolfgang Timme and his coming to terms with his Nazi father
Wolfgang Timme, born in the 1940s in West Germany, takes on worldview-related stimuli from
scholastic and Protestant correlations at an early stage. As such, in his youth he organizes a
demonstration within the framework of the Protestant church against the Vietnam War together with
friends which is then met by a lack of understanding on the part of church officials. This leads him to
leave the church. He takes positions on political and worldview questions and follows his convictions
with corresponding deeds. In particular, his confrontation with his father plays a large role in all of this.
Mr. Timme already announces early on in the interview, “My father was a Nazi, afterwards as well”.
The entire text sequence reads:
“A:
I:
A:
I:
A:
I:
A:
[…] ... my father was a Nazi (louder)
hm
afterwards as well, while his brothers had all quickly grovelled back to the CDU and the
church, and […], yeah, to a certain degree I respected that, that the man didn’t just change his
stripes for some, uhhm, profit interests or the like
hmm
but as I started to think for myself, there was no more communication at all at home, there was
nothing. It was
hmm
for me all that actually remained was just how can you get out of here (mild laughter in the
voice)…so at sixteen I ran away for the first time, out on the streets” (Lines 43-64).
In the first mention of the topical field, a comment immediately follows from an argumentative manner
of depiction. The initially shocking statement, “My father was a Nazi”, which is particularly loud and
emphasized, is followed by the admission, albeit limited, that the father’s straightness and consistency
is worthy of respect. Afterwards he explains that as a young adult he broke off contact with the family
home and at the age of 16 “ran away for the first time, out on the streets” (Line 64). In this brief
sequence, Wolfgang Timme opens up three time levels (t¹ to t³) and switches from narration to
reflexive commentary and then back to narration. The fact that after the Second World War, i.e., in the
1950s up to the 1970s, the father remained a follower of National Socialism (t¹) is unusual in the face
of the official absence of societal legitimation of this worldview. This makes the demonstration of
respect, a posture that Wolfgang Timme evidently appropriated in later years and which demonstrates
his perspective from the present day, all the more astonishing (t³), because in the 1960s the father’s
position was an important reason for the son to break off contact with his family home (t²). A change
had therefore occurred during the course of his life in his attitude toward the father, which indicates
learning processes that have taken place in the meantime. This early point in the interview
demonstrates the large degree of relevance of the topic for the son who had obviously deliberated
about his relationship with his father.
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5. 2 Experiences and Conclusions: Kurt Groscher and his concept of God
Kurt Groscher was also born in the 1940s in West Germany. In the main part of his narrative, he talks
about his apprenticeship as a Management Assistant in a shipping company, his subsequent foreign
assignment and his thoughts on it.
“A
The most interesting thing for me was my employment in the Export Department, and the
Export Department Director was a patron of mine in so far as he made sure after my
Management Assistant Examination, which I passed with honours in the autumn of 1956, that I
was able to work for one year abroad. I have to add in regard to my performance on the
Management Assistant Examination that I had vacation time before the written part of the
examination. I used the vacation to study and I, um, prayed to God to be with me for the
examination, to help me pass it and that this was my request. I, um, then phrased it something
like, um, that if I pass the exam […] I would get involved in the youth mission in the Protestant
church in Town A, and then, like I said, I passed the Management Assistant Examination with
honours, uh, and then we moved and I didn’t keep my promise (Lines 47-61).
A
Yeah, um, after I returned from B-Town in France, um, I had, um, mental problems. I just
couldn’t really, um, in daily life, I couldn’t find my bearings in daily life, um, I, I, um (5 sec.),
yeah, it’s, I don’t, well basically, um, even today I’m not really sure, um, what the cause was.
Uhm, pff, different things for sure that also played a role, um …, but I think that maybe one
reason was that I hadn’t kept my promise back then, so um, it could have been one of the
causes, the fact that I didn’t keep my promise to God, that He, um, then showed me, ‘So, you
didn’t treat me right’ and this is the punishment for my wrongdoing (sighs) (Lines 120-129)”
Kurt Groscher constructs a connection between the broken promise and his mental problems. He
explains his illness to himself as a punishment by God, who helped him in his Final Exam, who he in
turn still owed his thanks. Kurt Groscher developed this personification of God in his youth and retains
it throughout his entire life. For example, each month he donates his “tenth” to appease God and to
maintain God’s protection of his own life. It is interesting how Kurt Groscher explains this. From the
perspective of the present-day time of his narrative during the interview, he talks about experiences
from his youth and how he interpreted them during the period of his illness (one year later). This
interpretation, according to which it is in God’s hands to keep him healthy or to make him ill,
respectively, to make things go well or badly for him, represents a fundamental opinion for him that he
does not question during the course of his life. He therefore appropriates a fundamental conviction in
accordance with which he orients his life and in which he contextualizes the subsequent experiences
of his life. We are not confronted here with supplementary learning or re-learning, but rather with an
example of how one experience guides and assimilates the experiences that follow.
5. 3 Change in One’s Self-Perception: Wolfgang Timme overcomes his alcoholism
Wolfgang Timme attends university in Berlin during the so-called “Protests of 1968” period, is involved
in the student disturbances and is politically active in this regard. At the same time he starts a family
and works as a builder to earn money. A variety of correlations related to life and work (including the
bankruptcy of a construction company, a short period of unemployment, experiences on the East
German train system) lead to his fall into alcoholism. His wife leaves him and he reacts by going “onto
the streets” for two years. As such, he first flees into alcohol, then out of Berlin and institutional
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relations. These flight tendencies increasingly cause him to lose his biographical plot. He takes to the
road for two years (without a craftsman’s guild), i.e., he works in different cities as a bricklayer and
lives at times with acquaintances, at times in the homeless community, continues drinking and spends
his earnings quickly. This phase of his life has sequential curve attributes where he is adrift and living
from one day to the next. During this life phase his father becomes seriously ill and he decides to
return to his parents to help them.
“A:
I:
A:
..then I was just completely on the road for a couple of years... and then I went home as my
father got old, got sick… I thought I had to help out the old folks a little… even though the
communication was bad, they still took care of me for a good few years...
mhm
so you have to look after things... a complete disaster, a complete (slightly emphasized)
disaster. I came ... 3 o’clock in the morning I staggered home totally drunk, my father died at 5
o’clock, at 10 o’clock my mother was able to wake me up to tell me that my father was dead.
... That’s how I helped them… That was the kick for me to say ‘Boy, things can’t go on like
this…that’s the end of my drinking’…Was hard at first, at the building site... pretty much alone
without any therapeutic support.[…] ..Yeah, my father had to die for that (Lines 126 – 145).”
Wolfgang Timme perceives this event as the catalyst for a reversal. He manages in the subsequent
period to overcome his alcoholism and to become functionable. In the interest of protection, a change
from the sequential curve to the biographical plot is apparent. In a later reflection he evaluates:
“A:
mhm, that um, is simply yeah um, that the realization, you come home, you actually want to
help your old man… it was in fact pure hypocrisy... certainly well-meant, but what you actually
did… that, um, nah, that was for me somehow, I was disgusted with myself at that moment
(Lines 1328-1331).”
Wolfgang Timme is capable of realizing that he cannot continue to let himself go, and wants to be a
responsible person again. His self-image is destroyed as a result of the discrepancy between his
intentions and his actual deeds according to his normative principal of standing up for his own
convictions, with the result that out of this negativity a fundamental change occurs in his selfperception and through this learning process he seeks to develop a new functionability.1
5. 4. Changes through New Experiences: Kurt Groscher experiences a relationship
Kurt Groscher talks about his mental problems which last for some years until his meeting later with a
woman changes him.
“A
1
[…] then I um, got so um, sick that I just couldn’t um, work anymore. I um, was incapable of
working for um, around half a year, um, and I um, casually mentioned in a talk with a female
doctor um, that um,... that life wasn’t actually worth living anymore. Yeah, and that um, set off
the alarm signal for her and yeah and then I went into mental, psychiatric treatment. Um, I was
in therapy then um, for around half a year, but then I broke off the therapy because I um, had
the feeling that this doctor, um, didn’t want to do anything other than pump me full of
medication, and I didn’t agree with that and um, I um, just relied totally on God’s help and that
actually carried me through, um, all the years until I got sick with TBC, tuberculosis, um, in the
Spring of 1966. On June 4th, 1966 um, I um, was transferred to the sanatorium in Q–town, […]
On January 5th, 1967 um, I was transferred to the BFA thorax surgery clinic in R–town um, and
there um, ... it was decided that I um, needed an operation, […].
Cp. my interpretation of this text section in von Felden 2006.
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And on January 5th, 1967, as I came um, to R–town, um, ... um, what I want to say, from that
um, point in time onwards my life changed, not overnight, but um, yeah, it changed
significantly. That was namely the day that I met my wife. She was um, also um, in the
sanatorium […] and we were at a table for four people […] and um, and from the first day we
met, um, we um, we did a lot of things together, and um, well, up to the day of the operation.
[…] We went on a lot of excursions and it was a wonderful time, um, we enjoyed it, um, it was
actually a pretty worry-free time” (Lines 141-174).
Kurt Groscher described himself in his youth at school and also in his apprenticeship company as very
lonely and without a relationship. This situation culminated in his foreign stay, where he made a few
attempts to meet people and make friends, especially a girlfriend. This lack of a relationship coupled
with sexual problems left him in despair and drove him after his return to Germany into a sequential
curve of depression and mental problems until his illness with tuberculosis. In his depiction, he
coincidentally meets his future wife at the clinic and together they experience a carefree time of falling
in love. Since this time – as we discover in the interview – his health problems have disappeared and
he is capable of leading a “normal” middle-class life (starting a family, occupational advancement,
buying a house).
Kurt Groscher presents this change as an event in which he had no part himself. He does not reflect
on the fact that the relationship with his wife liberated him from years of extreme loneliness and that
the source of his problem lay more in his lack of a relationship. Coming out of the sequential curve
phase, he re-emerges into a new phase of the biographical plot, and his attitude toward his own life
phases changes fundamentally. But the notion that learning processes become effective in the
transition of the process structures receives no confirmation in his narrative. He is not aware himself
that together with his wife, he takes on the challenges that come up later in life in a completely
different manner than was the case before. In my opinion, this process of change absolutely
represents a learning process; it apparently seems to be a rather informally unfolding learning process
that, while it is expressed in the manner of its depiction in the interview, is nevertheless not expressed
in explicit reflection processes.
6. Conclusion
I have shown four categories on the basis of excerpts from two case studies in order to provide you
with a small insight into the complexity of life processes over the course of a lifetime. I am working on
analyzing further processes from various materials so as to ultimately achieve an extensive
description of learning processes over a lifetime.
Thank you very much for your attention!
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References:
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