ABSTRACT

In both academic and policy spaces, learning is often cast as lifelong, dynamic, constructive and in particular, agentic. Despite this focus students’ voices are rarely privileged in these spaces – especially in policy. We respond to this oversight by deploying Foucault’s theories of knowledge to explore how students understand themselves as learners, considering this alongside dominant political and academic discursive constructions of learning. Using a metaphor card approach, we explored metaphors for learning articulated by students in longitudinal focus group interviews. Conducted over a two-year period with 47 students from four Western Sydney schools, student metaphors for learning were diverse and wide-ranging, frequently reflecting strategic approaches to learning that aligned with requirements of high stakes exit exams. Significantly, student descriptions of themselves as exhausted, passive containers of impermanent learning were at odds with national and international policy and higher education constructions of learning as ‘lifelong and agentic’. This contradiction raises critical questions about students’ experiences of learning in schools, the role of teacher education, and re-direction of university equity programmes aimed at increasing access and participation for educationally marginalised students.

摘要

在学术和政策领域，学习通常被认为是终身的、动态的、建设性的，尤其是能动性的。尽管有这个重点，但学生的声音在这些领域很少享有特权——尤其是在政策方面。我们通过运用福柯的知识理论来回应这种疏忽，以探索学生如何将自己理解为学习者，并将这一点与主导的政治和学术话语结构一起考虑。使用隐喻卡方法，我们探索了学生在纵向焦点小组访谈中表达的学习隐喻。在为期两年的时间里对来自西悉尼四所学校的 47 名学生进行了调查，学生对学习的隐喻是多样而广泛的，经常反映出符合高风险退出考试要求的学习战略方法。显著地，学生将自己描述为无常学习的精疲力尽、被动的容器，这与国家和国际政策以及高等教育将学习构建为“终身和主动”的结构不一致。这种矛盾引发了关于学生在学校的学习经历、教师教育的作用以及旨在增加教育边缘化学生的机会和参与的大学公平计划的重新定向等关键问题。