Identity and Lifelong Learning

Becoming Through Lived Experience

Edited by:
Sue L. Motulsky, Lesley University
Jo Ann Gammel, Lesley University
Amy Rutstein-Riley, Lesley University

A volume in the series: I Am What I Become: Constructing Identities as Lifelong Learners. Editor(s): Jo Ann Gammel, Lesley University. Sue L. Motulsky, Lesley University. Amy Rutstein-Riley, Lesley University.

Published 2021

Learning and identity development are lifetime processes of becoming. The construction of self, of interest to scholars and practitioners in adult development and adult learning, is an ongoing process, with the self both forming and being formed by lived experience in privileged and oppressive contexts. Intersecting identities and the power dynamics within them shape how learners define themselves and others and how they make meaning of their experiences in the world. The series, I Am What I Become: Constructing Identities as Lifelong Learners, is an insightful and diverse collection of empirical research and narrative essays in identity development, adult development, and adult learning. The purpose of this series is to publish contributions that highlight the intimate and intricate connections between learning and identity. The series aims to assist our readers to understand and nurture adults who are always in the process of becoming. We hope to promote reflection and research at the intersection of identity and adult learning at any point across the adult lifespan. The rich array of qualitative research designs as well as autobiographic and narrative essays transform and expand our understanding of the lived experience of people both like us and unlike us, from the U.S. and beyond.

Identity and Lifelong Learning: Becoming through Lived Experience, Volume Two of the series, focuses on identity and learning within informal settings and life experiences. The contributions showcase the many ways that identity development and learning occur within cultural domains, through developmental and identity challenges or transitions in career or role, and in a variety of places from assisted living facilities to makerspaces. These chapters highlight identity and learning across the adult lifespan from millennials and emerging adults to midlife and older adults. The authors examine cultural, relational and social identity exploration and learning in international contexts and within marginalized communities. This volume features phenomenological and ethnographic qualitative studies, autoethnographies, case studies, and narratives that engage the reader in the myriad ways that adult development, learning, and identity connect and influence each other.

Praise for: Identity and Lifelong Learning: Becoming Through Lived Experience

"We all pay lip service to the importance of lifelong learning, but what is it exactly and how does it come about? The connections between identity and learning are intriguing and complex, especially when it comes to adult learners. In this very thoughtfully organized collection, researchers present qualitative and narrative studies, along with personal narratives, to explore identity development in formal and informal learning environments. Contributions from varied cultural contexts, most with powerful and moving stories to tell, provide insight into how identity, meaning-making, and adult learning and development intersect and influence each other. Psychologists, scholars and educators interested in identity development and meaning-making will find inspiration and fresh understanding in this innovative and enlightening series."
Ruthellen Josselson
Author of Paths to Fulfillment: Women’s Search for Meaning and Identity

"This innovative series on adult development is inspiring and substantive. We hear voices from the margins and stories of courage. We read identity-formation narratives by young adults and experienced professionals who share impressive capacities for transparency, vulnerability, and self-reflection. Many of the narratives are embedded in rigorous qualitative research that highlights diverse ways that identity is shaped through social positionality, lived experience, the quest for individuation, and willingness to encounter life as a dynamic learning process."
Jared D. Kass, Lesley University
Author, of A Person-Centered Approach to Psychospiritual Maturation: Mentoring Psychological Resilience and Inclusive Community in Higher Education

CONTENTS
Preface. PART I: DEVELOPMENTAL TRANSITIONS AND LIFE EXPERIENCE. “Truly My Heart’s Work”: Rural Emerging Adults Constructing Meaningful Lives, Donna M. San Antonio. Becoming a Mother: Caregiving Identity Development, Sarit Lesser. “I’m Not Done in Any Way”: Identity Growth, Revision, and Lifelong Learning in Late Midlife Women, Diana Giglio and Sue L. Motulsky. Growing up Hearing, Growing up Deaf, Marie A. Lynch. Exploring Late Adulthood Identity: Views of Lifelong Learning in Two Groups of Older Adults, Jamie D. Stockton. PART II: MIGRATION, CULTURAL ADJUSTMENT, AND LANGUAGE LEARNING. Becoming Care Workers: “We Are Not Only Domestic Workers,” Daphna Arbell Kehila. Becoming an Active Learner: Reconstructing Identity of North Korean Millennial Defectors in South Korea, Hyewon Park, JungHwan Kim, and Esther S. Prins. Multifaceted Identities of an Immigrant Woman: An Educational Trajectory of Becoming, Bita H. Zakeri. Interstitial Spaces: A Case Study of English Language Learning and South African Domestic Work, Anna Kaiper-Marquez. PART III: LEARNING AND IDENTITY IN WORK AND CAREER DECISION-MAKING. 80/20: Making Identities in Making Spaces, Eli Tucker-Raymond, Brian E. Gravel, and Ecco Pierce. Under the Influence: The Familial Construction of Career Identity, Porscha Jackson. When Self Comes to the Surface: Identity for Women in Career Transition, Sue L. Motulsky. About the Editors. About the Contributors.