ABSTRACT

This article aims to unravel a mature student’s processes of social engagement at a university, based on nine years of biographical interview data. By framing itself within the realist social theory, this paper analytically distinguishes between precedent social conditioning factors, social engagement processes, and their consequences of learning outcomes in a temporal perspective. In this way, this study attempts to explain how the mature student came to activate or inactivate agency in interaction with changing social circumstances at the university over time. The results of the study show that mediatory mechanisms between social structure and learner agency are the mature student’s mobilisation of diverse modes of personal reflexivity and her development of relational reflexivity. The empirical evidence reconciles the competing theorisation of reflexivity between durable disposition and temporary strategy, indicating what matters in student learning from the mature student’s viewpoint are changing relational and reflexive dynamics throughout time.

摘要

本文旨在根据九年的传记访谈数据，揭示一个成熟的学生在大学的社会参与过程。通过在现实主义社会理论中构建自身，本文从时间角度分析区分了先例的社会条件因素、社会参与过程及其对学习结果的影响。通过这种方式，本研究试图解释成熟的学生如何随着时间的推移与大学不断变化的社会环境互动而激活或停用能动性。研究结果表明，社会结构与学习者能动性之间的中介机制是成熟学生对多种个人反思模式的动员及其关系反思的发展。