8.1.1 A learning culture: a working definition
A good start for this discussion (and one within language education), is Riley,
who defines a learning culture as (see section 4.4):
a set of representation, beliefs and values related to learning that directly
in∩uence (the learner’s) learning behaviour (1997,122).
Learning, says Riley (1988), is a “social process and varies according to the
nature of the society in question” (20). Therefore, this “set of representations, beliefs and
values”, that I will call belief system, is defined by the learning nature of “the society in
question”. Moreover, the features of a learning culture are always present in any learning
interaction occurring, for instance, inside the classroom when formal teaching∕leaming
takes place. This also means that young adult learners and teachers of a given culture,
and at a given time, have been so exposed (since they started learning) to the patterns
originated by these belief systems, that they know perfectly the system and the rules that
it encompasses. This fact, of course, is what allows researchers to get to know a learning
culture. Here, I am obviously referring to an ethnographic, and not anthropological,
approach to learning (Riley, 1996b, see section 4.3.5). The ethnography on education is
rich in accounts of this sort3. In this sense, the data analysis that was presented in
Chapter 6 is, I believe, a good account, though not exhaustive, of the learning culture of
the learners I worked with. In it, I delved into the metacognitive knowledge of the
learners and explored their belief systems about person, task and strategy.
However, the learning process is not only influenced by one set of belief systems.
The educator (that is, the teacher, or the parents and siblings at home, or the priest at
church, and so on), another important agent of formal and informal learning processes, is
also present, and her presence also implies a good amount of representations, beliefs and
values. Thus, a learning culture not only refers to a set of belief systems from one person,
that is, from one side of the learning encounter; rather, a learning culture implies a
combination of two sets. Thus, according to Riley, within a self-directed learning
scheme, the learners bring their representations of “language and language learning” and
the counsellor contributes with her “expert knowledge of language, learning and self-
access system” (1997,123), among other things. I certainly believe that this combination
of sets of belief systems was very well illustrated in Chapter 7, when I described the
Oaxaca/97 project, my way of putting in practice my theory, that is, my own “set of
representations, beliefs and values”, and the reaction of the participants to this.
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