ERIC Number: ED471618
Record Type: Non-Journal
Publication Date: 2002-May
Pages: 8
Abstractor: N/A
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
Women's Learning and Development Across Borders: Insights from Anglophone Caribbean Immigrant Women in the United States.
Alfred, Mary V.
The learning and development experiences of English-speaking Caribbean immigrant women in the United States were examined in a transcultural study. A heuristic phenomenological approach was used to explore how a sample of 15 Anglophone women from the British Caribbean islands who had immigrated to the midwestern, southwestern, and eastern United States were negotiating the structures that facilitate and/or hinder their development. The interviews with the women revealed that early learning and socialization created a disciplined structure and solid foundation that facilitate adult learning and development in their host country. The women acquired two forms of knowledge--indigenous knowledge and institutional knowledge--in their home country. To participate in cultural systems in the United States, the women had to renegotiate their identity, language, and conceptualization of voice. The women navigated the epistemological positions of women's ways of knowing and were not fixed in any one particular developmental phase. The findings suggested that the epistemological positions of Silent Knower, Received Knower, Subjective Knower, Procedural Knower, and Constructed Knower are not stages of epistemological development but different positions that a woman occupies as she interacts with the various systems within her sociocultural environment. The women's learning and epistemological development was driven by context, personal agency, and social capital. (11 references) (MN)
Descriptors: Adjustment (to Environment), Adult Development, Adult Learning, Cognitive Structures, Cross Cultural Studies, Cultural Differences, Cultural Influences, Cultural Pluralism, Definitions, Educational Environment, English, Epistemology, Immigrants, Individual Development, Learning Experience, Learning Processes, Learning Theories, Literature Reviews, Models, Native Speakers, Self Actualization, Self Concept, Social Capital, Social Influences, Womens Education
Adult and Community College Education, Box 7801, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27695-7801 (Proceedings: $30). For full text: http://www.ncsu.edu/ced/acce/aerc/start.pdf.
Publication Type: Reports - Research; Speeches/Meeting Papers
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: United States
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A