Between structure and subjectivity: life-histories and lifelong learning

The subject of life-as-lived, life-as-experienced and life-as-told has long interested authors and researchers (Burner 1986). The biograph-ical method with its various forms has been a part of sociology’s his-tory since the Chicago School in the 1920s (Thomas and Znaniecki 1918-20). In the 1980s and 1990s, sociologists and scholars in other disciplines have expressed a renewed interest in the biographical method. As the life experiences of a person are the very foundations of educative processes, it is natural that the biographical method is used also in educational research and especially in adult education. From numerous life course studies done in different countries, Peter Alheit (1994) argues that ‘living a life ’ has become more prob-lematic and unpredictable. It is ‘a laboratory for developing skills whose usefulness is uncertain’. This does not of course invalidate the biographical approach to education. On the contrary, in late modem culture we still have enormous opportunities to organize our biograph