Week Four--Theories of the Life Course

I. Chapter 4 (Theories of the Life Course) reading from text Learning and Change in the Adult Years with highlights from the chapter:

• Experience, and the ability to reflect upon and learn from that experience, emerges as a key factor in the formation of adult personality and social roles.
• The life course is described in terms of a sequence of stages through which one progresses, at least ideally.
• The identity of adult education as a field of study is largely premised on the identity of the adult.
• Many adult education programs are explicity designed to promote personal change or development, and are geared towards addressing life-span concerns.
• Levinson: Each era has its distinct and unifying character of living. Each transition between eras thus requires a basic change in the character of one's life.
• Gilligan: Terms like separateness, autonomy, and independence are essentially male values and females value relationships and responsibilities, empathy and attachment, and interdependence rather than independence.
• Caffarella and Olson: Interpersonal relationships are extremely important to women's self-concept.

II. Fellow cohort, Kelly Findley and I led a student-directed seminar on this week's topic--here are a couple of questions Kelly proposed and my overall view of how the discussions went:

Question #1:

Gilligan (page 74) states that terms like separateness, autonomy, and independence are essentially male values and relationships and responsibilities, empathy and attachment, and interdependence are female values. Do you agree or disagree with Gilligan’s assessment? Has the advancement of women in leadership roles in what was once considered a “man’s world” changed the descriptive terms used to express women and men values?

This question resulted in a record number of replies, I think! There was plenty of good discussion on the topic, one that with difference between genders being the focus, was understandably controversial.

Question #2:

The text contained a number of theories that depict adult development by using stages and phases to show progression from child to adulthood. Some of these dealt with only male or female subjects while others integrated the two genders. Among the most notable models were: 1) Levinson’s theory regarding the four eras of the life cycle (page 71); 2) Caffarella & Olson’s study of women based on Levinson’s model (page 75); 3) Maslow’s theory of self-actualization (page 85); and 4) Erikson’s theory composed of 8 psychosocial stages (page 88). In your opinion, which approach seems to give the best explanation of adult development and why?

There was a lot of good sharing here, also! Cohorts shared their views on the four theories, which led to lively discussion!

Kelly and I also provided some good internet resources on the topic, which also sparked some good discussion!

III. In response to the reflection questions on the seminar provided in "Leading a Seminar" document provided by our instructor:

• Kelly and I chose good resources and questions to present to the seminar participants! We had a lot of fun planning and leading the seminar!
• I am quite comfortable in a leadership role with my peers. I have gained a lot of confidence in this area over the past year or so, with most of the thanks going to this online program!
• I think the participants enjoyed the discussions on the material we supplied for the seminar and we all learned quite a bit!
• I think the seminar has been an excellent educational tool, and especially on this topic!