Towards an ethnography of learning: Reflection on action as an experience of experience¹

¹An earlier version of our argumentation formed the basis for this paper and appears under the title “Auto-ethnography and action research” in Crews and Weigert (in press).

Abstract

In this paper we look at the educational assumptions that underlie the notion of learning from experience and at the specific circumstance of teaching (participatory) action research in the context of higher education. We take the view that ‘learning from experience’ is not merely a psychological mechanism, but a process of socialisation of its own kind.

By first looking at the ‘basic understandings’ of social situations and learning cultures we draw our attention to a reassessment of the significance of trivia. Accordingly, reflection on action has to pay attention to the small things in the social situation reflected upon. In addition, we use the findings from an earlier research done into what people consider as ‘real' learning and juxtapose them to the hidden curriculum of learning situations in institutional settings such as universities.

We conclude our paper by pointing to the differentiation between learning about, in and for practice.

¹An earlier version of our argumentation formed the basis for this paper and appears under the title “Auto-ethnography and action research” in Crews and Weigert (in press).

¹An earlier version of our argumentation formed the basis for this paper and appears under the title “Auto-ethnography and action research” in Crews and Weigert (in press).

Notes

¹An earlier version of our argumentation formed the basis for this paper and appears under the title “Auto-ethnography and action research” in Crews and Weigert (in press).