Aggression, recognition and qualification : On the social psychology of adult education in everyday life

Abstract

The article analyses the emotional aspects of a professional training process in the light of the participants’ experienced societal status. A detailed text analysis of interviews with a group of social pedagogue staff in Danish Youth clubs focuses on a particular vulnerability and their aggressive perception of other students with social problems, and interprets it partly as a reaction on the paradoxical situation adults in continuing education, and partly in the perspective of their experience of not being recognized as a profession. The last section of the article further explains the deep hermeneutic text analysis applied, which combines psychoanalytical concepts of socialisation with a language game approach.

Keywords

• Professional identity
• recognition
• emotional aspects of adult learning
• pedagogue
• social work