Coming to know oneself through experiential education

Bibliographic Data

ID2933536
AuthorsRobyn Zink (University of Alberta, corresponding author)
Year2010
Volume31
Issue2
Pages209-219
Publication date2010-05-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueDiscourse Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0159-6306 • E-ISSN: 1469-3739
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/01596301003679727
OpenAlexW2100640451
LanguageEN
Citations received6
References cited15

This article draws on the work of Foucault to explore why students on a residential program talk about learning about themselves as if it were an epiphany and one of the most empowering aspects of the program. Foucault's schema of turning to the self suggests that the pleasure students experience at ‘discovering’ themselves is a logical response to what he terms as one of the most powerful technologies of the self. Butler's work on giving an account of oneself is used to investigate the terms through which learning about the self occurs. She extends and inverts Foucault's schema, suggesting that one is only required to give an account of the self in the face of another. To become self-knowing requires recognition by another and recognition of others. While contemporary experiential education has been shaped by the maxim that nothing is more relevant to us than ourselves, I argue that perhaps this maxim should read; ‘Nothing is more relevant to us than those around us’

Aesthetics · Embarrassment · Epistemology · Experiential learning · Maxim · Nothing · Pedagogy · Pleasure · Self · Sociology · Adult and Continuing Education Topics · Computer Science · Diverse Education Studies and Reforms · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Psychology · Youth Education and Societal Dynamics

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