Alone But Together: Exploring the Possible Barriers Impacting Learners’ Feeling of Belonging in a Further Education Networked Learning Group

Abstract

This interdisciplinary study uses the lenses of post-structuralism and anarchism to reconsider the issues of belongingness within a further education networked learning group. This is because post-structuralism problematises the notion of belongingness from the stance of group representation which may well imply that the ‘self’ is fragmented; In fact, post-structuralism considers the idea of group representation to have been misconstrued from the dimension of a linguistic construct. Similarly, anarchism rejects the idea that part of a group can represent the whole of the group; individual autonomy is paramount than group autonomy and the former shapes the latter.A narrative inquiry was used to explore the barriers and how conflicting ideas about the 'self' in group representation evolves and survives or how the 'self' struggles and dies. The experiences of four lecturers were collected and analysed and an argument was put forward towards a critical ethical consideration regarding the notion of networked learning and learners feeling of belonging. The emphasis was not to attempt to generalise, but to typicalise certain issues that should not be accommodated within the utopian notion of online learning groups and communities.

Keywords: Belongingness, belongingness, post-structuralism, further education, online communities, learner identity, community of practice, networked learning

DOI: 10.7176/JEP/10-9-16

Publication date:March 31^st 2019