Identity, interpretation, and the moral ecology of learning

Abstract

Within hermeneutic theory, human identity has been conceptualized as a form of self-interpretation, situated within value-laden practices that offer moral points of reference and standards for cultural engagement. Central to the notion of identity, from this perspective, is a kind of practical-moral position-taking in which a person is an expression of what it means to be human within a particular moral space. This article extends this argument by showing the connection between self-interpretation and situated learning, suggesting that human learning is a type of moral becoming. To do so, the article will, first, offer a review of situated learning scholarship that has drawn a connection between learning and identity; second, show how the adequation of learning and identity is entailed within the broader hermeneutic claim that identity is a moral self-interpretation; and third, argue that learning is fundamentally a moral phenomenon. This argument raises possibilities regarding practical and conceptual issues, such as learning in the service of a cause larger than oneself, the responsibility and resoluteness of learners, and the oft-noted tension between human agency and social structure.

Critical psychology & education: Opportunities outside silos

“…In North America, critical psychology work that is relevant for schooling tends to be embraced by academic communities outside of mainstream educational psychology discourse. Psychologists such as Slife (2004), Richardson (2012), and Yanchar (2016), who tend to publish in philosophically oriented venues, have been instrumental in critically engaging with foundational assumptions in educational psychology.…”

Questioning Consilience and Autonomy in Self‐Determination Theory: A Critique and Hermeneutic‐Phenomenological Alternative

“…Work in this area, in general, differs significantly from what is offered in more traditional cognitive, behaviorist, and constructivist approaches. For example, hermeneutic‐phenomenological accounts of learning have emphasized agential, fully embodied familiarization with cultural practices (Ashworth, 2004; Yanchar et al., 2013), gradual development toward tacit, highly competent or expert participation (Dreyfus, 2014), and moral frameworks that situate this kind of growth and development in the midst of practice (Yanchar, 2016).…”

The Moral Ecology of Unstructured Speaking on Study Abroad: Finding Speaking Opportunities

“…In preparation for a similar discussion in the broader field of psychology, Brinkmann (2004, p. 58) cautioned: … granted that moral properties are an irreducible part of the human world … we must be particularly careful in first understanding this moral dimension, since moral properties very easily drop out of consideration, or become reduced to something they are not, when investigated with the tools of current psychological methodology. Bird et al (2021) outlined one way to understand the value-based or "moral dimension" of language learning by synthesizing insights from value-based approaches to language (Hodges, 2015) and learning (Yanchar, 2016). The three primary claims synthesized from these approaches are that (1) language learning has intrinsic goods, (2) participation in language learning requires balancing contextual demands to effectively realize these goods, and (3) the way someone balances these demands and goods constitutes taking a position relative to other possible positions.…”