Iscensättande av identiteter i vuxenstudier

Sammanfattning: The focus of this thesis is how identities are construed in adult education. According to the theoretical framework inspiring the study, identities are viewed as discursive constructions that are negotiated in social arenas. Hence, identities are considered versatile, plural and contradictory. The study has an ethnographic case study design and the field work was conducted 1998–2001. Various sources of data collection, such as interviews and participant observations were utilised. Every day practice at three different institutions of adult education in the case study municipality ”Nystad” were studied: Folk high school, Komvux and Liber Hermods flexgymnasium. Participants (27) were studied extensively, and a follow-up containing biographical interviews with the participants was also done 18 months after the main study.The result will show how the discourse of life long learning produce different technologies applying to different institutions of adult education defining what counts as knowledge, the relationships between actors and the demands participants will be posed with. Although the institutions of education are different, there are also similarities. The differences, however, are important in the recruitment of participants. The requirements of the education as to who you are supposed to be as a participant in adult education show a similar pattern, irrespective of the institution of education; the student with an interest in studying, prone to change, independent and well-behaved.Different strategies are detected when focusing the staging of participants’ identities, adaptive and defiant. An adaptive strategy means the adults meet the requirements of the education and a defiant strategy that they resist. The strategies may be applied by one and the same participant depending on the situation. Biographies show how different interpretative repertoires are used to stage different identities. The participants use four repertoires relevant to the subject: that of making a living, learning, earning credits and self realization. The repertoires applicable to the forms of teaching are teacher oriented, selfdirected and conversational. The repertoires used in relation to the teachers in adult education are expert, person, supervisor and administrator. The repertoires used by the adults in order to describe other participants are adult student, study mate and friend. The result of the study inspires the discussion of adult education in terms of social inclusion and exclusion.