Informal Learning in Community: The Role of Subjectivity and Intersubjectivity

This paper, representing a subset of data from a larger study, provides a preliminary social analysis of a specific site of informal learning with welfare mothers in a job readiness program and the role of subjectivity and intersubjectivity in meaning making. As the women came together to talk about their experiences with each other, they were listened to, taken into account, and validated in their past experiences, current circumstances, and feelings; they also had an opportunity to learn from each other thus illuminating informal learning. The informal learning of women on welfare can assist us in understanding how subjugated knowledges are constructed and how we might facilitate learning. Introduction The importance of informal learning among adults cannot be overstated. How we learn about our world, our place in it, our roles and how to effectively function occurs primarily in the informal sector. It is often through informal learning situations that identity is formed and reformed, cultures are transmitted, relations are negotiated, and social action is initiated. While there is interest in informal learning in organizations (Marsick & Watkins, 1990) and in community development and community learning projects (for example, Cadenas’ work in Mexico; and Binghman, 1996) there is little research on the nature and dynamics of informal learning in specific social contexts of adult learning. This report provides a preliminary social analysis of a specific site of informal learning with welfare mothers in a job readiness program and the role of subjectivity and intersubjectivity in meaning making. Conceptual Frame According to Foley (1993) much of adult learning is not acquired through formal education but is gained through experiences, through participation in an aspect of social life such as family, community or work. He defines informal learning in Neighborhood Houses in Australia as “generally tacit or implicit, embedded as it is in routine activities of women in the house…takes place in conflict shaped by individual, interpersonal, institutional, and broader social and cultural factors…[and] is not automatic or inevitable” (p. 25). To this he adds that the development of critical consciousness occurs as significant learning. Livingstone’s (in press) work indicates “anyone can engage in informal learning on his or her own volition and schedule, and apparently people in the most socially disadvantaged statuses are just as likely to do so as those in the most socially dominant positions” (p. 22). Unlike Foley, Livingstone sees informal learning as explicit as distinguished from everyday perceptions, general socialization and other tacit learning. He identifies four criteria for explicit informal learning: conscious identification of the activity as significant learning; retrospective recognition of a new form of knowledge, understanding, or skill; acquired on one’s own initiative; and, a recognition of the process of acquisition. Whereas the majority of people with a diploma or higher education seek out further, or continuing, education on an annual basis (p. 14) Livingstone notes that less than a quarter of those without a high school diploma enroll in further, or continuing, education raising the question as to the role of informal learning for those “excluded from advanced forms of organized education?” Further, Livingstone indicates that in informal learning there is a reliance on elders, or those more experienced, as the major source of knowledge, particularly in job-related learning. The older people are the more they tend to rely on their own past learning experiences to guide them in learning; older workers are teaching younger ones informally. Foley (1993) contends that by analyzing the dynamics of informal learning insights can be produced into the ways in which people develop critical consciousness for action. Bingham (1996) suggests that critical learning occurs through community work for survival as in Appalachian grassroots organizations, while Hart (1990) suggests that certain enabling conditions are necessary for critical learning to occur. These conditions include developing a “structure of equality” and group membership where similar social positions, assumptions, and experiences are shared. All contend that critical learning begins with personal experiences, uses small group discussion, and assumes political commitment. Patel (1996) describes how a sense of a shared space facilitated women’s venturing into the public realm of the state bureaucracy whereas the Highlander Center has documented numerous civic learning projects that grew out of participatory popular education. Social injustice creates tensions that mount over time creating actions of resistance and reaffirmation grounded in knowing (Freire, 1985). These “moments of culture” are violations of knowing which bring about mobilization, thus “breaking the silence” and “giving voice.” Harstock’s (1998) feminist standpoint theory is helpful in understanding how materialism creates a feminist material reality out of which knowledge is produced. Women’s lives are structured by social relations of the dominant patriarchal system; are struggled over and produce contradictory and conflicting experiences. This vision of feminist reality, grounded in real experiences, is won through struggle of seeing beneath the surface of social relations and the informal learning that comes from the struggle to change those relations. A standpoint depends on the assumption that epistemology grows in a complex way from material life. Maher and Tetreault (1996) contend that the multiple feminist standpoints point to a new set of problems which contradicts a unitary worldview of any group. Postmodernism emphasizes the constructedness through language, discourse, and histories of all identities. Thus positionality “acknowledges the knower’s varying positions in any specific context…of gender, race, class” (p. 160). Positionality signals that context is a key to understanding all knowers and knowledge; that it is relational and evolving. Research Design A participatory research model (Reason, 1994) using collective dialogue was designed to facilitate documenting the experienced realities of women on welfare. Small group discussions were conducted at a job readiness program in Nebraska sponsored by a local community-based action program (9 sessions, 18 hours. November 1997 to March 1998). The welfare mothers who participated are a group of thirteen (13) African American, Latina, Anglo, and biracial women ranging in ages from 19 to the mid40’s; each woman has from one to four children. At least one facilitator of the job readiness program was also present. All sessions were audio-taped and transcribed, observational field notes were kept. Data were analyzed through a coding system which identified recurrent themes found in the women’s stories. The larger study included several stages: talking with women to identify issues connected with welfare reform; creating an interview protocol; and interviewing recipients. Our intent in this report is to relate findings from stage one of the study and to examine how women’s subjectivity and intersubjectivity facilitate how they make sense of their everyday circumstances. Constructing Knowledge Under Welfare Reform recipients are required to be involved in work or work-related activities as they make their way toward self-sufficiency. Job readiness workshops are offered for those who need to develop employability skills as determined by the caseworkers. Often the participants have years of employment history but are required to attend job readiness, nonetheless, in addition to educational or vocational training. I initiated discussion sessions at a job readiness site as a way to learn about what was happening with women’s education and to understand the concerns and struggles that women were experiencing under the new law. We met with the women every other week to discuss their experiences. The women were enthusiastic about the sessions because they had few opportunities to talk with a group of women about what was happening and they appreciated knowing someone was interested in listening to their stories. Not all thirteen women were present at each talk session even though the job readiness workshops were mandated under their self-sufficiency contracts; there was a fairly consistent core of about 4-5 women with others cycling in and out after several sessions. They knew we had questions about educational issues but other than that we were interested in the women talking about whatever was of concern to them. During the first two sessions we suggested topics for discussion but over time the women determined the issues they wanted to discuss. As these talk sessions proceeded we began to see processes of informal learning taking place.