Living, learning and narrating in the third stage of life. A qualitative panel study on constructions of identity and processes of learning and Bildung in biographical retellings

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Heide von Felden
• Subject Area: Educational Research on Socialization, Welfare and Professionalism
• Term: from 2019 to 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 417578587

The research addresses a currently societal relevant subject in an empirical innovative way: Constructions of identity and processes of learning and Bildung are examined by a qualitative panel study and methodical possibilities of retelling.The education-policy initiated concept of lifelong learning led to a spatial and temporal eroding of society’s understanding of learning. On the one hand, learning outside of institutions and – due to its long-term nature – largely unnoticed in daily life, is more likely in the focus of attention. On the other hand, it becomes apparent that the appreciation and support of learning is not limited by the learner’s age.The continuous increasing life expectancy and the improving quality of life with the start of retirement at the age of 65 to 67 gave rise to a "third stage of life" between start of retirement and very old age. It is discursively connected to the concept of active and productive ageing.Nevertheless, this stage of life is governed by particular subjective challenges: The end of gainful employment, evaluating new questions of meaning and possibly anticipating fading spaces of opportunities all existentially concern the individual constructions of identity. Qualitative research is necessary in order to be able to make statements about such processes of development and identity and related long-term processes of learning and Bildung. This approach to research appreciates the being as the individuals are now, comes from their subjective interpretations and relevancies but does not remain in reconstructive analysis. This is possible with biographical narrative interviews, the narrative structural method and the analysis options of retellings.The unique feature of the empirical material is its further expansion to a panel study. It was possible to conduct biographical narrative interviews with 15 individuals aged from 52 to 68 years in 2006-2007 and to conduct a second survey with the same individuals in 2017.The project’s particularly originality and major innovation is in its longitudinal design and its target group of the so-called "new old ones", because panel studies on the analysis of processes of learning and Bildung are very rare due to the research expenditure. The specific analysis options of retellings make it possible to identify temporal processes and changes of the narrators self image and view of the world in a longitudinal comparison of the two interviews. The minimum and maximum comparison of the developed interview logics as cross-sectional analysis can be condensed to typologies.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants