The target group of non–traditional students includes adults, but also first generation
students, women in a situation of inequality, workers, people with immigrant
origins, and generally students from educationally disadvantaged background
conditions. In this paper we will concentrate on autobiographical writing as a
tool of empowerment, reflectivity and creation of personal resources to promote
completion and avoid drop–out in HE.
Autobiography makes it possible to explore the past and the present of the autobiographer
in the framework of the family, of the local community and the
widest institutional and sociocultural contexts. As a training instrument, autobiography
favours: self–knowledge, the ability to analyze the past; the setting up of
connections between the experience lived, the present and future projects; and
the identification of the most important factors that condition the personal and
educational evolution of the autobiographers.
Our proposal of educational autobiography has a guided approach. In the training
we have aimed to combine group sessions, centred on oral work, with the students’
autonomous work which consists of developing the educational, family and
social life story.
At the end of the process, each student will have produced two written documents:
an autobiographical story and an analysis of this story. In this paper we
will present a case study of a disadvantaged student from a rural area, stressing
the contributions of autobiographical writing to develop reflective competences
and awareness about the relations between individual itineraries, family contexts,
and broader sociocultural frameworks. We will specially focus on the analysis of
the autobiography done the own student, navigating from subjective narratives to
social and cultural comments and reflections. This approach favours innovation
and empowerment in HE contexts, making possible the development of the re-
flectivity competence.Unión Europea Erasmus Multilateral Projects, nº 517750-LLP-1-IT-ERASMUS-ESI