Göteborg University

ECER 2008 - FROM TEACHING TO LEARNING

Workshop VETNET

IDENTITY DECLINATIONS AND PATTERNS:

A WAY TOWARDS PROFESSIONALISATION
Crossed analyses of two lifespans

Cecilia Mornata Katja Vanini De Carlo

ICO - Engineering, conception, organisation Mimèsis & adult training
Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences
Laboratory R.I.F.T. Laboratory R.I.F.T.
University of Geneva University of Geneva
Unit “Teaching and learning”
HEP Vaud (High Pedagogical School)

ABSTRACT

In this paper we cross two different researches that are both focused on individual
experiences in adult life. The first research studies the construction of professional identity of
new teachers. Its purpose is to analyse how the professional status of a teacher is created, by
considering it as a construction taking place during a large span in his life course.
Particularly it explores how teachers tell significant life experiences during their first year as
professionals. Vanini (2007a, 2007b) wants to understand more profoundly how different
forms of identity can take place during this sensitive period in a professional’s career.

The second research relates about the way individuals interact with knowledge. Mornata
(2008) defines this particular interaction as a result of an individual epistemological process
built up through life experiences (Charlot, 1997; Charlot, Bautier & Rochex, 2000; Beillerot,
1996; Beillerot, Blanchard-Laville & Mosconi, 2000). Those experiences continually modify
the individual meaning of knowledge. Therefore, Mornata tries to understand the link between
this meaning and personal experiences, to better explain individual interaction to knowledge.

Both researches try to analyse the role of experiences in human development, and to deepen
the understanding of how individual awareness about own practices takes place.
The common hypothesis is that the construction of professional identity of an individual and
his interaction with knowledge are strongly linked with the concept of experience. Therefore,
the intent is to cross in this paper the two research methods and data, observing how they are
linked and how it is in consequence possible to think adult training differently.

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Introduction

Identity and professional identity

Literature on identity easily fills many bookshelves. It is still a topical issue, though, to try to
define and understand its complex nature, which appears to be elusive in its various aspects. It
makes full sense to question, as Fabbri and Formenti (1991) do, if and how identity is
knowable and definable. Both questions, one ontological, the other epistemological, remain
central in our scientific questioning. It is not possible to treat the entirety of the question about
identity in this paper, however we propose here a provisory definition.
A first, apparently simple, way to define identity as a concept is to consider it as the answer to
the basic human question “Who am I?” (Fabbri & Formenti, 1991). But this definition has
actually to be specified, in order to overcome a static conception of the construction of the
self. We consider identity, following Marc (2004), as a complex phenomenon. Since Greek
philosophy, it is constituted by a well-known paradox: identity means at the same time unity
(which is unique) and unicity (which is distinct) (Gravé, 2002). Both elements of this paradox
represent identity, which means that each subject feels himself different from others and
universal at the same time. Identity seems to be constituted by a constant oscillation between
closeness and opposition, assimilation and differentiation, proximity and distance of the
individual from the other, from others.
Nowadays identity, with its multiple belongings, cannot be seen as an intrinsic quality of the
person (Ruano-Borbalan, 2004). It has to be considered as a process resulting from an
encounter to oneself, to others, to the environment. It is necessary therefore to overcome the
traditional opposition between personal and collective identity. Kaddouri (2006) explains
dynamics of identity as an ensemble of elements composing and re-composing identity in a
circular movement of permanent revision. We therefore want to use the concept of horizon of
identity, a horizon that engages the person to go further to develop himself. This person’s
search happens mainly through education and training, according to Malet (1998). Identity is
finally defined as a tension towards, involving necessarily the application of strategies of
identity allowing the subject to try and fill the gap caused by these tensions, between his
identity for self and the identity for others (Camilleri et al., 1990).

Lisimberti (2006) considers professional identity as a dynamic process that is integrating

personal and professional dimensions. Perception of self, of one’s own professional role, as
well as of one’s belonging to a professional group can be considered important elements that
constitute identity. Being considered as a dynamic construction, identity is thereof particularly
concerned by transformations: the person is constantly driven to re-elaborate its identity,
according to its own development potential, and to its professional path. Seeing that
professional and personal identity cannot be considered as separated, we are interested in the
dialectic between the professional I and all the other dimensions of the I. Through the
analyses made of this particular dialectic, we would like to highlight the individual’s
searching process of personal continuities and coherences, changes and persistences (Malet,
1998). The identitarian dynamic has to be finally considered as the movement that allows the
person to become a little more other while remaining himself (Baillauquès, 1999). It is
important for us to underline that the study of this process of transformation implies
important consequences in the matter of adult training.

Professionalisation

Professionalisation is, following Lang (1999), a process with multiple issues and stakes. This

2
term has two main meanings: the first concerns the new competences and knowledges one has
to acquire to become professional; the other is referring to the social status of the professional
category. Kaddouri (2005) proposes to explore tensions between the social level, looking at
the place assigned to the subject, and the level of individual identity dynamics, ie the place
claimed by the subject. Dubar and Tripier (2005) consider necessary to take into account the
signs of subjectivity in professionalisation to understand the collectif processes. This means to
us that professionalisation is understandable through the study of identity development of a
new professional. It appears to be clear, as Mariani (1996) considers, that this definition of
professionalisation is dynamic and therefore strongly linked to long life learning and training,
because it takes in account the aptitude of improving one’s professional skills.

Representations of marking experiences and knowledge

Our research offers us a better understanding of the links between the way people define
themselves and the way they define knowledge. To clarify those links will lead us to describe
how people relate themselves to knowledge and, subsequently, will allow us to propose adult
training taking into account this issue. We consider that this process of sense making about
reality results from inner experiences (Dubet, 1994, Lahire, 2001), modifying representations
that we have about knowledge. This process manifests itself through the sense that a person
makes, in a particular moment, about her own experiences and knowledge. It is important to
underline that this process is continuous and not determined once for all. Four elements
structure this theoretical framework: a person as a plurality of identities, experiences,
representations and knowledge.

• Marking Experience
As we said before, a person has several identities appearing from how she makes sens about
her life in different domains. At the same time, a person is made of different experiences,
lived in different social contexts. This heterogeneity of experiences and contexts is at the heart
of the plurality of roles that the person has to assume in her everyday life. We consider that a
person, to make sense about her reality, is in a continuous negotiation between her passed
socialisation and her confrontation to the environment (Lahire, 2001). In this way, the present
time is a bridge between what a person has lived and integrated in her past (her scheme of
action) and the answer that she can provide now facing her present environment. A way to
analyse this articulation between the past and the present is the concept of social experience.
Dubet (1994) defines it as a combination of logics of actions helping the person to handle
with a complex reality through integrated schemes or by creating new ones. This is possible
only if the socialisation is partial and not total, when there is not a complete individual
adherence to the social reality (Dubet, 1994, Dubet & Martucelli, 1998, Lahire, 2001). We are
interested on the discourse that people make about their experiences, considering those as a
junction between their past socialisation and their present individualisation, so as socially
determinated but individually lived.

• Representation
We understand representation as a social construction helping people to make sense about
reality (Berger & Luckmann, 1966). This one does not exist apart from social representation,
so we consider each definition of reality as a social construction. This means that for us a
representation is not a discrepancy between common sense and scientific definition, but
reality itself, seen that this one does not exist beyond people beliefs (Seferdjeli, 2005).
Considering a person as made of plural identities, being at the articulation of her past
socialisation and her present environment, means that we want to favour, through the analyses

3
of representation, a dialectic between personal experiences and present time.

• Knowledge
In this research we consider knowledge as a social construct, we are therefore not going to
present it thought a theoretical definitions. We are interested in representations of knowledge
not considering a definition of it better or truer than another one. We regard knowledge in a
general way, without specifying a field or an object composing it. So we can consider it as a
group of objects, fields and elements that are significant for a person to define knowledge.

In an exploratory research we have found that the discourse that a person does about her
fundamental experiences is organised through a particular pattern of representations. The
discourse that the person does about knowledge is organised through the similar pattern of
representations. In certain cases, this pattern can be spotted in choices and actions that the
person undertakes, and not only in her speech. We set the hypothesis that the pattern designed
by the person from an emblematic personal experience is a synthesis and a catalyst of the
speech that the person develops about his whole experiences, anterior and future. There is
homology between the structure in the person’s speech about her personal experiences and in
the person’s speech about knowledge.

Our common framework

From these theories we retain the following elements:

• Professionalisation is defined as the process allowing the person to become
professional in her field. We intend this process as an identity process ;
• The person is plural and constituted by different identities;
• We define identity through these three elements:
o the feeling of self as unique individual
o the values and principles appearing to be at the bases of the professional choice
o the image of self as part of a professional community;
• These three elements can be called representations;
• These representations are organised according to a pattern caracterising the speech of
a person about her personal path and knowledge;
• Representations are the result of the sense that the person makes about reality;
• Experiences structure that sense making, which means that experiences structure
identities.

Our questionning

Our researches focuses on the links between the sense making about one’s path and the sense
making about one’s professional identity. In this paper, we cross two different methodologies
to deepen this question:
What contributes to the integration of a biographical approach and an experiential
approach in the study of professionalisation?
In this aim we crossed two different types of data
(i) biographical portfolios
(ii) comprehensive interviews about personal path and about knowledge
and two ways of analysing them
(i) conceptualizating professionalisation through a model
(ii) finding representations constituting a pattern.

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Methodology

Biographical portfolios as a research method

In a research about the construction of teacher’s professional identity we are implementing

what we call a biographical portfolio. Two terms are at the base of this new methodology and
their association is innovative in educational research: portfolio and biographical.
Portfolios are well known and originally used in the artistic field to show and value an artist’s
work, in particular his masterpieces. It has been transferred in fields such as education and
adult training, as an assessment tool and training method. In teacher training, its raising use
and value is confirmed by recent literature (Vallerand & Martineau, 2007). On the other hand,
its use as a research method is quite new and still in development.
The particular characteristic of our concept is given by he adjective biographical. This
method offers the opportunity to take into account temporalities and various dimensions of a
life because of its biographical nature. In fact, through this particular method we ask to the
person to choose several documents, coming from various periods of her life course and
important to her to describe the development of his/her professional identity. The person give
us different documents that we classify as :
- texts referring to the basic teacher training (personal writings, significant written
productions, traces of practical trainings, journals or logs, etc.)
- texts related to the time of entering in the new profession (lesson plans, pupils’
production significant of the way of teaching, etc.)
- other significant type of documents (pictures, writings, etc.)
The portfolio contains as well the transcription of a biographical interview, conducted by the
researcher with the new teacher. It is important to underline here that the portfolio is not
composed by the teacher but by the researcher. The teacher then valids the portfolio through a
feedback that the researcher ask him during a second interview realised when the researcher
hands back the portofolio to him/her. The validation of this methodological set is still a work
in progress. We argue that the biographical portfolio is an interesting instrument for research
because it provides important elements on the construction of professional identity allowing a
deeper understanding of its evolution through time (Vanini, 2007). In this sense, we can
consider this kind of portfolio as a post-biographical tool. Furthermore, it is supposed to be
an instrument for accompanying reflection of new teachers at the beginning of their
employment. Educational effects of a classical biographical work through narration are well
known (Dominicé, 1990; Baudouin, 2003; Bertaux, 1997). We consider that, in addition to
life-story interviews or biographical writings, biographical portofolio has a new heuristic
validity, allowing to explore other type of documents concerning the subjects life, and
conveying the construction of his/her professional identity.

CMC and comprehensive interviews

The data for the exploratory interviews on representations about knowledge and about
marking experiences is coming principally from semi-structured interviews built on a
comprehensive epistemological perspective. According to Schurmans (2006) a comprehensive
posture allows to catch interactional dynamics through different levels: identity construction,
common sense, symbolic structure and organisation. As Charmillot and Seferdjeli (2002)
explain, human being has not to be considered exclusively as social determinated, he makes
sense about the world and, by reproducing social facts, he contributes to reproduce
determinism, too. This does not mean that we have to avoid mechanisms of social

5
reproduction but that we have to distinguish what is coming from those determinations and
what is coming from individual and collective dynamics of construction of meaning.
In this research we are particularly interested in individual construction of meaning; we are
therefore using comprehensive interviews. According to Ruquoy (1995) it is one of the best
instruments to outline representations and values. In fact, its open questions let the person free
to tell what is important to her and allow the researcher to lead this person, if necessary, to her
own construction of meaning.

According to these preliminary elements, we propose the following methodological setting :

• T1 : CMC and a comprehensive interview on marking experiences
CMC is a task thought by Michel (1989) and proposed for professional counselling.
We decided to use it in our research because it allows the person, through steps of
classification and selection, to choose the experiences that are marking for her.
o First, we ask the person to write on a paper the experiences that describe
her whole life.
o Second, we ask the person to classify these experiences into three groups
(professional, personal and linked to training or school education), by
writing them on coloured cards (one card for each experience, one colour
for each group of experiences).
o Third, we ask them to put those cards together producing a shape that
satisfies them.
o Fourth, we ask them to point out the experiences that are marking for
them.
This task is followed by an interview about the shape and the marking experiences.
This will allow the person to finally find a lead characterising the whole marking
experiences. This lead often corresponds to the pattern we outline from the analysis.
• T2 : comprehensive interview about knowledge
Some weeks later a second interview is proposed, this time about knowledge. We ask
the person, through a list of open questions, to speak about what knowledge means to
her. Usually, during this second interview, the person proposes spontaneously some
links with the first interview, if it’s not the case, we ask them to find some leads.

Analysing data

In this paper we realized content analysis; coding and categories have been managed with
Nvivo. We worked on six cases, three of each research, and are presenting here two of them,
as significant and exemplar.

Systemic connections model

A part of the analysis will be reprensented by a model. This model can be considered as an
anlysis of the systemic connections between events and dimensions of self, represented by
numbers and letters. This scheme allows us to understand what is influencing the construction
of professional identity, in terms of regularity, ruptures, supports, redefinitions.
The numbers represent the sequence of experiences. Their increasing sequence shows the
chronological place they have in the biographical interview; on the other hand, their place 1 on
the model time line shows when they appear in the person’s chronological life.
The letters in the model are referring to the identity declinations emerging from the content
1
We underline that the exact place in the scheme is not significatif, what is important is the element that the
circle touches. This let us discuss, in the analysis, the connections between all the points.

6
analysis. The model has not to be read only in a linear but also in a systemic perspective. It
highlights the process of chioce making concerning teacher’s professionalisation. This one is
represented by three main nodes: the first professional choice and other elements regarding it
in terms of influence; one or more major ruptures or events the teacher refers to confirm his
choice; a period of assumption of the choice, and/or a reorientation towards new choices.

t ci
x
e o
Rupture Assumption N h
c e
of the choice
First or
choice confirmati
on of the
choice

Time

Sup
po
Temps
rt
SANDRINE

The analysis of Sandrine’s data let emerge different important elements that are heuristic to
the comprehension of identity.

• Sequence of experiences

Sandrine exposes her professional project through these chronological steps:

1) From coaching a group in gymnastic activity to a internship in a creche

She starts telling that they proposed to her to coach a group of children in gymnastic and she
discovered that she likes it. Arriving to the end of her post-obligatory school, her professional
choice is not clear to her. At that moment, “by pure chance” Sandrine hears of a internship in
a bilingual (French – German) maternal school and decides to try because she needs to
confirm her professional choice: she says that she wants to “see if [working with children] is
really that” what she really wants to do.

2) A short period at University

The internship of one year confirms partially her choice, but as she says “it isn’t yet exactly
that”. She decides to enter at University to learn educational sciences. To justify this choice,
she says she wanted to work with children but the High Pedagogical School2 [HPS] of her
Canton did not have yet a good reputation. Very quickly she realised that the choice of
University was a “disaster”, because the faculty she choosed was not responding at all to her
desire to study pedagogy. This “false step” helps her to define her project more clearly: she
was sure about what she did not want to do. That leads her, following her words, towards the
third step.
2
Hautes Ecoles Pedagogiques (in french) is a vocational school of tertiary level. Swiss system is not unified in
teacher training; according to the Canton, it is done whether in a High Pedagogical School or at University.

7
3) The choice of the HPS
At that point, Sandrine finishes her University year and “better echoes comes from and about
the HPS, so I said to myself yes, I’ll try after all”. But of course, although “committing in this
training, I’ll let myself the door open, and I’ll see what happens afterwards.” The three years
of training at HPS take very little place in her spontaneous narration, which is quite
interesting to consider for us in the sens of “economy of the narration” (Baudouin, 2003).

4) The experience in Austria

“And when I finished my training, I didn’t feel ready, I needed to take a certain distance from
all I had learned at PHS”. This consideration leads Sandrine to tell us about her experience of
teaching French in Austria to adults.

5) Beginning to teach… but with a parallel project : a Master at University

According to her words, the experience in Austria has been quite fundamental. She felt ready
after that experience to take a class, even if… there was still “a little thing lacking”! So she
took the opportunity to work part-time, and to apply at the same time to University to obtain a
Master.

6) Coaching children and personal changes

After the first part of the narration, and without further solicitations, Sandrine searches more
elements explaining the teacher she is today. The first experience in order of importance is to
have coached children during ten years in gymnastic activities. The second one is the
“enormous” change she felt in her ways of acting as a result of the teacher training that had a
prior role in that change.

7) An inevitable detour: “my mother always discouraged me to be a teacher”

At that moment of the interview Sandrine let us know that she felt a certain ”vocation” much
earlier than what it seemed according to the previous elements. She seems to have needed to
pass through a certain process making her feel she asserts herself by taking her decision
without being influenced. The fact that her mother appears to have been herself a teacher, and
has always made a very strong bad publicity to this profession, seems to play a role (as also
confirmed by Sandrine herself during the second interview). Sandrine needs apparently to go
by the roundabout way as she describes, to finally choose the same profession as her mother,
despite her counsels against that choice.

• Identity declinations

A) Choosing commitment and assuming responsability

It is interesting to explore how Sandrine conceptualises commitment. In a writing realised
during her first training year, she says that it is necessary for a person to commit on a
voluntary bases: “If commitment isn’t spontaneously choosen, motivation risks not to be there
and to dampen”. This lead us to explore the idea of choice, that seems to be very important to
Sandrine. It seems to us that, for her, commitment could also be imposed, but with
consequences on motivation. After choosing commitment, it seems, for Sandrine, that we
have to assume responsibility doing things well. This responsibility concides for her with the
entry in adult life. This comes, she says, from her education, and it appeared in her life before
entering in professional training.

B) Autonomy

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The main value underlying Sandrine’s professional choice appears to be autonomy. This is
visible in a large range of documents we analysed concerning her. For instance, in a reflection
realised during her first year of training, she expressed her desire to be able to give their
future pupils means to blossom, in order to reach autonomy in their learning and in their
development. During her second year of training, when she has to explain her choice of
specialisation (between pre-school and primary-school teacher) she tells about her
experiences in practical training and explains how she felt much better working with children
in school-age: “The children already acquired relative autonomy”.
It is interesting to compare how Sandrine planned her activities during her training with the
way she organises her class as a teacher now. During her internship she applied a model of a
strict planning for herself, with a clear timetable and pre-defined teaching interventions letting
low initiative to pupils. Now, in her class, she privileges autonomy through a weekly planning
for pupils. Thanks to that, each child knows that he has a certain amount of activities to realise
before the end of the week: “They do it when they want, they take their time at school, and
they know that if they didn’t finish […] I’m not always behind them reminding them to do it”.
She is satisfied to notice that, after some difficulties at the beginning, they are getting used to
it and learning how to manage themselves.
Furthermore, in comparison with her own experience as a school pupil, she appreciates that
with new teaching methods “children have to raise their autonomy”. As we see, autonomy is
very important to her as a teacher, but also as a student. In fact, she defines her experience in
the HPS as “terrible” because of the control she felt on her as a student.
These elements can be spotted in her biographical interview, too. In fact, she repeats many
times that what she most likes in her job is “the idea that the children have to acquire
autonomy […] still, today, in my class, by the way I make them work, I really want them to
become… to acquire autonomy… that they are able to work without me being behind them to
tell them what to do…”.

C) Looking for new experiences to confirm her choice

Sandrine seems to continually search confirmation of her professional choice: at different
moments in her path she expresses the need to assert more clearly her role, or to do
“something more” to be completely sure of it. That brings her to make a certain amount of
turnarounks, until in the present, where she decides to do a Master at University, in adult
training.

D) A profile of teacher – student not yet defined

As just previously said, Sandrine has choosen to add to her newly acquired status of a teacher,
the role of a student. What appears to be quite interesting is that she prefers not to talk about
this decision to her teacher colleagues. She says she wants to avoid questions about her
intention, and especially avoid pressions. It is interesting to underline that she does exactly the
same with her student colleagues at University. These elements let us suppose that Sandrine’s
commitment in a new project has a strong social componement. We also see a link with her
need for autonomy.

9
 Sandrine’s model

1.
6. 5.
C D
) )

Ti
Xo
Eh
Nc
…

e
c
( 2. 4.
B 6
7.
) Assertion of
Rupture or
First confirm. A the choice
choice )
3. E
)
------------------------------------Life

LEGEND
• Sequences of experience
1. From coaching to internship / 2.Short period at University / 3.HPS / 4.Austria / 5.Beginnin to teach+master /
6.Searching more determinant elements / 7.Inevitable detour: “my mother always discouraged me to be a
teacher”
• Identity declinations
A) Commitment and responsibility / B) Autonomy / C) Experiences to confirm choices / D) Not yet defined
profile teacher-student

• Exploring the connections

We insert in this model Sandrine’s data to observe her specific path. It shows that something
important and recurrent is happening for her in terms of rupture and process of confirming her
professional choice. This can be understood through a large sequence of experiences in the
central part of the model. Furthermore, the identity declination (D), concerning her role that
appears not to be yet defined clearly during her first teaching year, seems to confirm that.
It is also very interesting to observe in this model how the origins of her choice (sequences of
experiences 1 and 6) are quite deffered in the chronology of her narration, but not in the
chronology of her life time. In the first part of the interview, it seems that her choice has been
influenced by chance, like having been asked to coach children in a gymnastic club and
having, by pure chance, heard about an internship to do with children. At what appears to be a
turning point in the interview (6) we discover that her dream was quite clear since her young
age but it was unavoidable in her family context. It makes sense therefore that, having a new
project, she chooses the fact to keep it secret in order to avoid pressure from significant
figures (colleagues at work).

Sandrine’s representations of her own experiences

It is important to underline that Sandrine’s interview was not build on questions about
knowledge but only on questions about experiences leading her to be a teacher. This means
that it wont be possible to explore here, as we will do afterward in the second case, the
correspondence between path reprensetations and knowledge representations, but we will try
to find the pattern through only one discourse.

As we pointed out before, Sandrine’s main theme seems to be autonomy. Exploring the
interview from a representational point of view, we could consider autonomy not only as a

10
main theme but also as a reprensentation of her path, as a part of her pattern. In fact, this
theme is used, as pointed out before, in different moments of the interview, to express
different things she lives as a teacher and as a student.
It is interesting to underline that this representation can be coupled with a second one, that we
identify as the need of a frame. In fact, in her pursuit to feel “ready” to teach, she follows
trainings and chooses to live different teaching experiences, what can be read as a search of
autonomy but also a need to have a frame. We have the impression that the more she obtains
certifications and she does experiences that should make her more autonomous, the less she
feels autonomous. As if her ability to teach was depending predominantly on exterior
elements (frame) and not on her capacity.
This need of a frame is present in her way to program her activities. She uses objectifs, as any
teacher does, but she underlines it several times. For instance, she started using them before
becoming a teacher, when she was a trainer: “I said to myself that the objectif was that at the
end of the year they should be able to do that and that”. And when activities are done without
a frame as in the creche, she “found it long” and boring.
It is interesting to observe the fonctionning of both representations in the discourse of
Sandrine. In fact, looking at these first elements, autonomy and the need of a frame are not in
opposition. For Sandrine, to be autonomous implies the previous existence of a frame. When
the frame does not exist, for Sandrine children are left to their own’s devices.
The need for a frame seems to be a condition, for Sandrine, to be autonomous (for instance:
objectives are indispensable to build children’s autonomy). However this frame does not have
to be to straight because in this case she will not feel free to be autonomous (for instance: the
way she was treated at the HPS).
It is interesting to underline that when she is near to be autonomous, she looks for a frame
instead of being indipendent right to the end. In fact, she says that, during the HPS she wanted
to go to another swiss city (in the german part of Switzerland) to follow some courses in
another HPS. Her HPS supported her choice, but not the school that was supposed to host her.
Instead of trying to go straight on with her decision, she dropped it down discouraged: “no, as
a result, I didn’t do it…sell, as a result I didn’t do it and it is a big frustration for me”. It
seems that the absence of a frame (support of the HPS that should host her) does not let her to
live her autonomy.

We understand that those elements are not enough to explain a pattern but they are the
beginning of an hypothesis on a pattern. We should have more informations on Sandrine’s
reprensentations to confirm this pattern and to analyse the functioning of it. Nevertheless this
analysis gives us an enriching perspective of Sandrine’s path and lets us see that autonomy
may not be the only theme.

11
MARIE

Marie’s representation of her own experiences

Through Marie’s first interview, it was possible to see some important elements to understand
her pattern. The image that she proposed with coloured cards showed four temporalities:
1. her childhood: that is defined as calm and having only one marking experience : “the
piano”. This activity is described as “a bubble” where she “could exist” by leaving the
beaten path to play in the way she wanted.
2. the entry in adult age, with two marking experiences. The first one is “Francine” (her
niece), who is perceived by Marie as a fatality. At the beginning, she has the impression
that she “didn’t act” on it and that it was a relation she “didn’t choose”, things where
made by their own. Nevertheless, during the discussion she admits having decided to
invest herself emotionally in the relation to Francine. The second one, called “Laurent”
(her boyfriend), is the last of her personnel experiences. In this case too, Marie underlines
that she “decided” to invest herself emotionally in the relation.
3. when she was at school, period of her life where appears the emblematic marking
experience of her path: “the language school”. This experience is described as the moment
she made her choice deciding to quit school to spend some months in England and doing,
once back home, what was determinated from the beginning: going to nurse school. In
fact she will say that she has “always” wanted to be a nurse.
4. professional life : it is described as a period of “back and forth” where “everything was
moving”. The marking experience is here the choice to “end the job at the hospital” to
work for a homecare association, to find some stability and start a family. So she does not
leave her nursing job, that has been determinated to be her job, but she chooses to live it
in a different way, to exist in a different context.
These four temporalities are relied between them by three elements:
o having the feeling to choose and to act
o having le feeling not to choose, not to act, when everything is determinated
o having the feeling to exist
We want to point out that those elements are some clues about her pattern and they will guide
the rest of her interview on her personal path.

• Choosing marking experiences: when life has a sense only as a whole

For Marie it was quite hard to define and find experiences resuming her life, because « it is
not possible » for her to choose between one experience (that turns out to be the emblematic
marking experience) and the whole experiences that she lived. On the one hand, she finds her
life “determined”. In fact, the emblematic marking experience revealed her what was already
written for her: to be a nurse. No other experiences will be enough important to be held. On
the other hand, even when asked to choose one person that seems to have had an important
role in her life, Marie cannot choose one experience as representative of this relationship
because the wholes experiences lived with her are important. Thus, we have the impression
that Marie’s life has a sense only as a whole and that is not possible to choose among those
events some that would be representatives, “tell our own life…it’s hyper general”

• When I act or when I don’t act : between choice and determinism

When we ask to Marie to find a lead between the whole marking experiences, she says
spontaneously “the choice”. She specifies afterwards that the main thing for her is the feeling
to have acted, which gives her “the feeling to exist among all these experiences”. In fact, this
feeling of choosing and acting is present in other discourses about marking experiences: for

12
example about “the piano” or “the end of the hospital job”, as we will see afterwards.
Therefore this feeling of acting and choosing showed by Marie is sometimes linked to an idea
of determinism. We can see that preatty clearly when Marie explains the marking experience
“language school” that she identifies as “the big thing” and the only one she chooses
spontaneously during the interview. During the explication of this experience she says that it
was “the first time that [she] decided what [she] wanted to do” and because of that she has
the impression of a real turning moment. She decides to leave her high school because she
was going very bad, “I needed to break something” she says. She leaves for England where
she spends some months and, at her coming back, she starts the nurse school. What is
interesting is that she has the impression to choose to leave the high school but she did not
choose to do the nurse school that was already determinated: “I have the impression that my
life was already written from the beginning. I’ve always knew what I wanted to do”. At the
same level, when Marie explains the marking experience « Francine », there is the same
nuance of determinism. At the beginning she says not having acted in this relationship, that it
was imposed: “but that [Francine] is a bit in quotes because it is true that it is not
something… I didn’t act on it, it’s… it’s an event that came”. But afterwards she says that
finally she has decided to invest this relation with Francine, she made a choice: “Yes, I
choosed somehow it was… to have this relation… because you have to keep a relation alive”.
The last marking experience that we can take as an exemple is “the end of the hospital job”.
In this case she chooses to leave hospital to work for a homecare association. It is an
important professional choice for her, she “turns a corner” because it tooks her “such a long
time to understand that [she] could work as a nurse on different working conditions”. She can
choose to change her working environment but not the job (that, we remind, has been
determinated from the beginning). In this way, she says, she will have some more stability to
found a family. She underlines, explaining all this, that “it is bizarre” that she has to think
about her job to be able to think about building a family instead of thinking about her family
first and then thinking to quit the hospital as a consequence. This remark that she made
extemporely is interesting, we have the impression that it is very important to her to feel the
choice in the part of her life that is the most determinate in her opinion, her job.

• When I choose I exist and I succeed

At those elements, Marie adds the feeling to exist when she chooses, for instance, to play
piano as she wants, instead of playing it as her mother wants her to. This is often relied to the
feeling of succeeding, she says “I wanted to play like that and then I succeeded […] then to
succeed, it’s the succeeding too, the piano I succeed weel, in England I succeeded, as a nurse
I succeed”.

These elements are recurrent in the speech of Marie, thus they seem to constitue her pattern.
To confirme this hypothesis and to better understand the fonctionning of this pattern, we
proceed to the analysis of the second interview.

Marie’s representation of knowledge

• Between choice and obligation to know: a sketch of a compromise

For Marie, the importance to know is relied to the interest and the obligation to know. Interest
for her is pretty relied to her job, hence the feeling of obligation. Marie finds interesting what
is coming from her nurse job, she feels thus the obligation to know those professional
contents. When the object does not concern her job, she does not seem to be interested. For
her, a wise man, a « great person » is someone who « is interested in lots of things »
independently from his job.

13
Learning for Marie is independent from having decided or not and to the interest that we have
in knowledge, when there is a professional obligation you have to learn: “there are things
that you don’t want to know, but you have to because… I see, in my job psychatrie doesn’t
interest me ina special way but you.. you havt to know it because it’s a part of your job”.
Obligation is not the only element important to Marie for who the choice is equally important
to learn. First she speaks about what she learned from life and she underlines the importance
to learn by our own means and experiences, in a certain way, choices. This freedom, that
excludes all external intervention, seems to be for Marie the best way to learn to live and to
evolve, even if it means to do some painful mistakes: “we are obliged to live by ourselves
our…our..our…stories, but truly to evolve, I think too…we need to..to learn by ourselves
things, to accumulate knowledge by ourselves […]”. Subsequently, she returns to formal
learning at school and linked to professional knowledge saying that there are anyway some
obligations that we cannot avoid. However, when the choice is present at school, learning can
be done in better conditions. It is interesting to see here, how Marie tries to find a compromise
between her vision of learning without restraints where choices are free, and the classical way
to learn, in a formal and scholar context. This compromise consists in let some spaces of
choice in scholar institutions to encourage learning: “I’m convinced that there are some
subjects that are interesting for us but that we are not obliged to know in school, then there
are some subjects we are obliged to learn, it’s part of general knowledge even if it doesn’t
interest us. Whereas after, there are the professional schools where we can choose what we
are going to do and it is more target. And I noticed that when we are interested in we learn
much more easily and on remember it too”
This search for a compromise is present when the interviewer asks Marie about the idea of a
total choice. Marie explains first that nobody can really choose, and that for different reasons:
“no, no, I think that ther is a lot of people who don’t have the choice”. Subsequently she says
that there are anyway some people who do not want to do anything, they do not have any
desire to do something, they are not motivated. This comes to say that they finally seem to
have the choice to have a desire, to be motivated: “[the choice] depends on learning, on
motivation to learn and on the possibility, desire and possibility. […] then there are people
who don’t desire to do anything, too”.
Lately, Marie explains once again the importance that she attaches to choice: “when we are
teen-ager we are not really aware that we have to know and that it’s interesting, too […] but
then where I find that it’s particularly important is when I choosed to go to the nurse school, I
succeded very well and I learned very easily while when I whose at college I learned very
hardly…so the notion of choice is linked to all that. I don’t know if you have ever seen Asiatic
people speaking English but it’s…it’s…they repeat only, they told them to repeat only… they
don’t really speak easily,[…] it’s not because we tell people to people that they have to learn
that they learn. […][people] often have the choice to receive [knowledge] but not to live it”
It’s interesting to see the projection that she does on her own path. She says that she has done
“the choice to live the fact to be a nurse”. Whereas, this choice has been written since the
beginning. So this notion of choice is coupled with the idea of determinism. The choice, from
her telling, is up to her and she has to do it to let the determinism achieve itself. She has
“always” known that she wanted to be a nurse, so that she did not even know why: “once (…)
I had to write down why I wanted to be a nurse and it was hyper hard”

It is interesting to underline that this compromise does not appear when the interviewer asks
her to go into details about the determinism in her life. First she denies the possibility of an
innate determinism in her case and she looks for explications linked to her familial history
(her eldest sister wanted to be a nurse too, but she failed). Finally she is not satisfied by this
explication, she does not adopt this representation and she affirms that nobody suggested this

14
job. In this way she belives that she is the owner of the choice. As if, to explain general
situations, the compromise between a total choice and a total determinism would be necessary
to make sense. While, to explain personal situation, this compromise is not necessary to make
sense on her personal story. “I really don’t think that we are planned, really not. Because my
sister has always wanted too, she spend one year and then she finally learned literature,
because she didn’t bear it…it’s funny…maybe it’s come from my sister who wanted to be a
nurse […] no because in my family nobody is in a medical field…I didn’t live hospital
experiences…they didn’t tell me about nurse experiences, they didn’t say you will be that…on
the contraire! […] So I don’t thing that someone suggest me to do that”

This analysis shows that the pattern of Marie seems to be choice, free acting vs constraint,
determinism, and that those elements have an important influence on her way to represent her
professional path and her whole life. It is important to notice that the way she reprensents her
experiences and the way she talks about knowledge let us see a desire to negotiate a third way,
less extreme, like a compromise. This compromise does not seem to be possible when she is
talking about her own life where both extremes have to be present to makes sense on her life.
This pattern lets her feel to exist and to succeed.

Marie’s model

1. A
) 2.

Next choice 4.
Rupture or assumption of
First confirmati choice
on of
choice choice 3.
A B
) )
(
2
------------------------------------Life

LEGEND
• Sequences of experience
1.Traced life / 2. England / 3. Nursing school / 4. Actual change
• Identity declinations
A) Luck to know what to do / B) To choose and to live ones choices

Sequence of experiences

To this rich analysis of Marie’s data, we add some complementary elements. Through the
search of her identity declinations and her sequence of experiences as related during the
interview, we let emerge the systemic connections they compose.

15
1. A traced life: “I always knew what I wanted to become…”
This is the first big step in Marie’s narration, it is quite clear even through her difficulty to
answer to the demand of the interviewer. Choosing significant experiences seems not to make
sens in her first representation of her life as beeing traced.

2. Significant event during high school: living in England

This event is caracterized by herself as significant. She calls it “a kind of accident in my
path”. After having experienced some difficulties at school, she leaves Switzerland for
England: “This made me discover what I wanted and who I was”.
Family seems to be considered as a support in our adoption of what Martuccelli (2002)
defines supports: the means the individual gives himself to become able to stand on his own
legs. Marie’s mention of her older sister as the one opening the path of the profession to her,
and of her mother from whom’s decisions she needs to emancipate, gives us some clues for
that interpretation.

3. Nursing school
Marie’s choice to become a nurse is concretized by her decision to start nurse training. This
choice is, as she wants to underline, done against her mother’s will who wanted her to enter
University.

4. Actual professional change

Marie is experiencing a turning point between the professional and the personal life at the
very same time her interview takes place. She expresses surprise about the fact that those two
dimensions in her life are connected in that way.

Identity declinations

(A) The luck to know from the beginning what to do

This first element contributing to her identity declination already appears in the above
analysis. We here consider it to be a sign of what she considers beeing a specificity of herself
as an individual. « In my case », she says, it was clear from the beginning what to do
professionaly. This seems to us to be undestandable as an identity strategy : to fill a gap
between what she considers for herself and a « general belief » about life and determinism, as
explained before.

(B) Values: to choose and to live one’s choice

Concerning the values underling Marie’s choices, we can only confirm the first analysis: for
Marie it appears to be absolutely important to make her own choice. This is why this
important element is firmly connected with what we represented with pink circle number 2 in
the model: the significant experience of living in England.

What is extremely interesting in Marie’s case is that the second identity declination (B)
appears to be in opposition to this first one (A). We represented this in the model as a clash
between A and B. We do not consider those aspects of identity as being in contradiction; we
refer to them as a contribution to the complexity of identity.

Through these first and not exhaustive analysis, we can confirm the pattern. Furthermore, it is
interesting to underline that in Marie’s model shows that the sequence of experiences is
equivalent to an identity declination. That let us confirm, once more, that the way we define
our experiences match with the way we decline our identity. This can be identified as a

16
pattern.

Openings

Throught this paper we showed that there are some complementarities between the two
methods. Their jointed use shows new facets of construction of identity and, at the same time,
of knowledge reprensentations. This is intended not only concerning the content analysis, but
also and especially concerning the conceptualisation of the two approaches.

Vanini De Carlo’s model is an important contribution to show the connections between the
whole elements cited by the person. It allows to deepen the construction of the representation
and to understand influences of each element composing it. On the other hand, it gives
important informations about the links existing between events exposed and the cycles they
create. This makes appear a system of sequences clarifying representations and identity
construction through a graphical model.

Mornata’s contribution is heuristic concerning the pattern, often composed of an interaction

between representations that can be complementary or in tension. In our researches the pattern
reveals the dialectic between past experiences and how the person represents herself at the
present time. This means to us that the pattern is an integrator of the various elements
contributing to indentity construction and so, to professionalisation.

In further perspectives, to exploit the whole potential of the crossed methodology, appears as
an evidence the necessity to accomplish both research processes for both type of corpus.

17
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