O teoretyzowaniu danych biograficznych : Przypadek studentów nietradycyjnych

Theorising biographical work from non-traditional students’ stories in Higher Education The article is about methodology of theorising, i.e. how we can get knowledge about non-traditional students struggles and crisis when learning and working with their biographies. Often we use theories to support research questions and results. But seldom do we know how to theorise from our own data and build a theory. This article is about the process of theorising by talking example from our research on non-traditional students in Sweden. By discovering biographical work that students were involved in, we could understand processes of forming and transforming their identities. We present our thoughts on theorising and developing a theory, and next we give an example of a student’s story outlining the process of biographical work to show the stages in the analysis that leads us to the theory. Trusting that everybody can learn how to theorise we discuss also how our theory could be used in further research regarding adults’ life