Development and Assessment of Self-Authorship

Exploring the Concept Across Cultures

Marcia B. Baxter Magolda, Peggy S. Meszaros, Elizabeth G. Creamer, Marcia B. Baxter Magolda, Peggy S. Meszaros, Elizabeth G. Creamer

• Publisher: Stylus Publishing
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781579225186
• Topic: Didattica
• Subtopic: Didattica per adulti

This book brings together new scholarship that expands and refines the concept of self-authorship across cultures. It adopts a constructive-developmental approach to self-evolution that emphasizes the interaction of personal characteristics and contextual influences on individuals' construction of knowledge, identities, and relationships. Individual chapters cover subjects from populations as varied as Dutch students, male and female Bedouin and Jewish adolescents, African American male and female adolescents in economically depressed areas of the US, Latino/a college students grappling with ethnic identity and dissonance, Australian college females preparing to be childcare workers, and finally a comparative study of Japanese and U.S. college students' epistemic beliefs.The book concludes by addressing questions about the challenges and opportunities involved in developing a valid measure of self-authorship that is less time and expertise-intensive than the in-depth one-on-one interview employed until now; and offering an outline of future theoretical and methodological research needed to further our understanding of self-evolution in general and self-authorship in particular.

PART ONE

THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS OF SELF-AUTHORSHIP

Marcia Baxter Magolda

The three chapters in this section describe the theoretical foundations of self-authorship. Boes, Baxter Magolda, and Buckley articulate the foundational assumptions of constructive-developmental theory, subject-object relations, and holistic development as a backdrop for understanding the evolution of self-authorship. They integrate epistemological, intrapersonal, and interpersonal research strands to form a holistic perspective of self-authorship. Baxter Magolda then uses a narrative from her 22-year longitudinal study to illustrate possibilities of the evolution of self-authorship, exploring the interweaving of the three dimensions in shaping the evolution of self-authorship. Hamer and van Rossum’s chapter summarizes their 25-year research program based on students in Dutch universities and higher professional education. They demonstrate similarities and differences between their learning and teaching conceptions and U.S. theories of epistemology and self-authorship. These chapters introduce the role of personal and contextual dynamics in the evolution of self-authorship, a topic that is addressed in greater depth in Part Two and Part Three of this volume.

This section raises two major theoretical questions. First, what are the possibilities and dilemmas in using a constructive-developmental theoretical approach to understanding self-authorship in multiple contexts and cultures? Second, what can be gained in refining our understanding of the evolution of self-authorship by exploring the interweaving of the three dimensions across multiple ages and cultures? These chapters offer multiple perspectives on these questions and set the stage for further exploration in the remaining sections.

1

FOUNDATIONAL ASSUMPTIONS AND CONSTRUCTIVE-DEVELOPMENTAL THEORY

Self-Authorship Narratives

Lisa M. Boes, Marcia B. Baxter Magolda, and Jennifer A. Buckley

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Abstract: This chapter outlines the foundational assumptions behind self-authorship and constructive-developmental theory. The authors emphasize the multidimensional nature of self-authorship, integrating epistemology, identity, and relational theory. We use narratives from Baxter Magolda’s and Boes’s studies to portray the nature of self-authorship.

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This chapter explores the theoretical foundations that have shaped theories of self-evolution and our understanding of the capacities of self-authorship, including constructive-developmental theory and subject-object relations. In particular, we examine three dimensions of adult development: (i) epistemolog-ical theories that concern assumptions about the nature and sources of knowledge; (2) intrapersonal theories that explore forms of identity development and self-definition; and (3) interpersonal theories that relate to how one constructs and participates in relationships. Drawing upon prior research, we offer an integrated theory and portrait of self-authorship and explore the ways this holistic perspective is relevant for adults with varying personal characteristics in different cultural contexts.

We distinguish the capacities of self-authorship from the broader theories of self-evolution. The term self-authorship refers to a phase of development within the lifelong process of self-evolution. Robert Kegan (1982, 1994) and Marcia Baxter Magolda (1992, 2001, 2009) define self-authorship as a holistic meaning-making capacity. Self-authorship is characterized by internally generating and coordinating one’s beliefs, values, and internal loyalties, rather than depending on external values, beliefs, and interpersonal loyalties. Self-authoring individuals take internal and external responsibility for their thinking, feeling, and acting. In addition to seeing themselves as the creator of feelings, they can internally reflect on and hold conflicting or contradictory feelings rather than being subject to these changing emotions. Questions of personal integrity are important from a self-authoring perspective because individuals evaluate themselves based on internal standards.

From a self-authoring perspective, one can differentiate parts of self from parts of others and distinguish between roles and relationships. In relationships an internally generated sense of authority is a resource for setting limits, maintaining boundaries, and managing differences and different power positions that may exist within one relationship. For self-authoring individuals criticism is seen as one perspective among many, which can be evaluated based on one’s own system.

To demonstrate the personal and contextual nuances in the evolution of self-authorship we use narratives of three young adults, Mike, Jane, and Dawn. Their stories illustrate the emergence of self-authorship as a developmental process and demonstrate the integration of the three developmental dimensions—epistemological, intrapersonal, and interpersonal—in the full achievement of self-authorship.

Foundational Assumptions of Constructive-Developmental Theory

The developmental concept of self-authorship builds on the work of Piaget (1952, 1965), the Swiss psychologist who studied children’s reasoning and cognitive growth. Piaget identified four increasingly complex schemes that children develop through experience in order to understand the world and perform logical operations. Contemporary neo-Piagetian researchers have extended his work on abstract thought into adolescence and adulthood (Baxter Magolda, 1992, 2001; Kegan, 1982, 1994; King & Kitchener, 1994; Kohlberg 1969; Perry 1970). These theories of self-evolution are grounded in two sets of assumptions about knowledge and adult learning. The first is constructivism, which is based on the premise that people create knowledge through interpreting their experience, rather than knowledge being an objective truth that exists outside the individual (Lincoln & Guba, 2000; Piaget, 1952). Individuals make meaning in the space between their experiences and their reactions to them:

The activity of being a person is the activity of meaning-making. There is no feeling, no experience, no thought, no perception, independent of a meaning-making context in which it becomes a feeling, an experience, a thought, a perception, because we are the meaning-making context. (Kegan, 1982, p. 11, italics in original)

Learning occurs as people make sense of the world through connecting new ideas with their existing understanding of the world in a process of constant revision. Constructivism provides a lens for understanding how adolescents and adults interpret and learn from their experiences because it focuses on the meaning that is made of the experience from an individual perspective.

The second assumption is that self-evolution has an underlying structure that is developmental in nature. Developmental theories provide frameworks for understanding qualitative differences between individuals and the transformative changes that occur in individuals over time. Developmental theory focuses not on what we know—the content of our thinking—but on the complexity, underlying structure, and pattern of meaning-making, or how we know. In constructivist theories the individual is an active change agent in growth and development. “These theoretical models share the conviction that individuals are consistently engaged in constructing knowledge, imposing meaning, organization, and structure upon experience” (Popp & Portnow, 2001, p. 55).

Kegan’s (1982, 1994) constructive-developmental theory of self-evolution in adulthood describes these underlying structures as “the organizing principle[s] we bring to our thinking and feeling and our relating to others and our relating to parts of ourselves” (p. 29). Learning and growth are the products of the transformation of the underlying meaning-making structure rather than the accumulation of knowledge, skills, and information. What distinguishes movement from one structure to the next are relationships between what is “subject” and “object.”

Subject refers to “elements of our knowing or organizing that we are identified with, tied to, fused with, or embedded in” (Kegan, 1994, p. 32). Subject is a basic principle that a person could demonstrate, but not tell you about. It is inseparable from the self. Object, on the other hand, is that which gets organized. It “refers to those elements of our knowing or organizing that we can reflect on, handle, look at, be responsible for, relate to each other, take control of, internalize, assimilate, or otherwise operate upon” (p. 32). As individuals gradually shift what they unconsciously held as subject to conscious consideration as object, the underlying structure of their meaning-making becomes more complex. As a person moves through these subject-object transitions, qualitative changes occur in one’s reasoning patterns and how one views one’s self and one’s relationships. For example, persons who use what Kegan calls “socialized,” or third-order meaning-making, organize their experiences in a manner that involves co-construction of self with others and ideas. From a socialized perspective, individuals have an abstract sense of self that is accompanied by a sense of loyalty to ideas, people, and groups with which one is identified. The socialized perspective relies on external authority for “standards, values, acceptance, belonging, and a sense of identity” (Popp & Portnow, 2001, p. 60). With the growing capacity to reflect on this co-construction and these external demands, what was subject moves to object and the self-authoring capacity emerges.

The capacity to be aware of one’s socialization—to hold it as object—enhances one’s ability to negotiate the effects of socialization (Abes, Jones, & McEwen, 2007; Torres & Hernandez, 2007). Baxter Magolda’s (2001, 2009) longitudinal participants demonstrate the role of personal and contextual nuances that Kegan notes in the activity of meaning-making. Because individuals “are the meaning-making context” (Kegan, 1982, p. 11, italics in original), their personal characteristics play a significant role in how they interpret their experiences. Personal characteristics include personality traits (e.g., extrovert, risk-taker, task-oriented), socialization (e.g., gender, class, race or ethnicity, sexual orientation, faith tradition), and meaning-making structures. Baxter Magolda’s participants’ personal characteristics mediated how they engaged in the experiences they encountered in their personal, professional, and community lives (for an example, see Cara’s story in Chapter 2 of this volume). Their personal characteristics also influenced the type of experiences that they sought out as well as how they interpreted all of their experiences. For example, those who used self-authored meaning-making were more open to considering new perspectives as a result of experience than were those who used externally defined meaning-making. Thus, the activity of meaning-making, and subsequently the journey toward self-authorship, varied widely among participants.

Self-evolution also varies according to people’s life and work contexts. Baxter Magolda’s participants experienced multiple work, family, and social cultures, or what Kegan refers to as holding environments. The degree to which these cultures offered challenges to participants’ meaning-making and sufficient support to address these challenges shaped participants’ growth. Participants who encountered more challenge than support struggled, whereas those who experienced minimal challenge stagnated. Conflicting expectations from various holding environments sometimes sparked development if support was available or if the person was at a point of readiness for transformation. Personal and contextual influences intersect such that the developmental journey can vary widely.

The role of personal and contextual influences in meaning-making informs the question of how self-evolution theories might relate to adults in multiple cultural contexts because many theories were generated from interviewing predominantly White American adults. Many constructive-developmental theorists explicitly advise against generalization (e.g., Baxter Magolda, 1992, 2001, 2009; Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, & Tarule, 1986; Perry, 1970) beyond their participants. Insight into how cultural influences shape meaning-making have emerged from studies involving adults who immigrated to the United States (Drago-Severson, & Berger, 2001; Helsing, Broderick, & Hammerman, 2001; Portnow, Diamond, & Pakos Rimer, 2001), bicultural individuals (Goldberger, 1996), adults and late adolescents from underprivileged socioeconomic classes (Belenky, 1996; Pizzolato, 2003), Latino/a college students (Torres & Hernandez, 2007), lesbian college students (Abes & Jones, 2004), and college students of color (King & Baxter Magolda, 2007). Although these studies reveal similar core meaning-making structures, patterns of self-evolution vary with personal and contextual influences. Further research, some of which is reported in this volume, is necessary to further explore the nature of self-evolution in general—and self-authorship in particular—in multiple cultural contexts. Studying the nuances of personal and contextual influences in self-authorship requires integrating the epistemological, intrapersonal, and interpersonal dimensions of development into a holistic conceptualization of the complexities of adult development.

Self-Authorship as Integrating Epistemological, Intrapersonal, and Interpersonal Development

This volume focuses on self-authorship as the integration of epistemological, intrapersonal, and interpersonal developmental dimensions. Rich traditions of research exist in each of these developmental arenas that inform theorizing about self-authorship. Although theorists in these traditions focus primarily on one dimension, many note relationships among the three dimensions. In this section, we synthesize these traditions and highlight how the three dimensions of development become integrated in self-authorship.

Personal epistemology considers how individuals come to know, the theories and beliefs they hold about knowledge, and the manner in which their assumptions about knowledge influence thinking and reasoning processes (Hofer, 2004; Hofer & Pintrich, 1997; Pintrich, 2002). Theories of epistemological development include assumptions about knowledge and its acquisition, descriptions about how knowledge is constructed as well as where knowledge resides, and explanations about the certainty, justification, and structure of knowledge (Baxter Magolda, 1992; Duell & Schommer-Aikins, 2001; Hofer, 2002; King & Kitchener, 1994; Perry, 1970). Several authors in this volume discuss epistemology in relation to the broader construct of cognition, in particular, King (Chapter 10) and Pizzolato (Chapter 11).

Most researchers who study epistemology conclude that a developmental progression occurs as individuals mature from adolescence to adulthood, particularly for those who attend college (e.g., Baxter Magolda, 1992; King & Kitchener, 1994, 2002, 2004; Perry, 1970). Across various research methodologies, samples, and study designs, there is agreement that individuals’ views about knowledge progress from one in which knowledge is right or wrong to a position of relativism, and then to a position in which individuals consider knowledge grounded in context. At this stage, they actively construct meaning based on evidence and make commitments in a relative world. In most theories, these stages are hierarchical, with the successful attainment of one stage presumed to be a prerequisite for movement to the next stage (Hofer & Pintrich, 1997). Many theories assume this progression is irreversible as it involves structural changes in epistemic assumptions and one cannot return to a previous position because development alters perceptions and the structures for meaning-making (Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005).

Perry (1970), who studied American male college students in the 1950s and 1960s, offered the first theory of epistemological development and found connections among epistemological, intrapersonal, and interpersonal development. Perry described epistemological growth as a new form of responsibility in decision making, which involved accepting the limits, uncertainties, and dissolution of established beliefs. This new responsibility may also include relinquishing “the wish to maintain community in family or hometown values and ways of thinking … and most importantly the wish to maintain a self one has felt oneself to be” (p. 52). Even though Perry examined intellectual development, students in his study described different motives for their growth, some that related to their intrapersonal and interpersonal development, such as “a wish for authenticity in personal relationships; a wish to develop and affirm an identity” (p. 51). Furthermore, Perry observed the absence of an integrated description of personal development, and noted “as a strategy of growth it would seem to deserve prominent place, not only in a theory of cognitive development but also in consideration of emotional maturity and the formation of identity” (p. 110).

Likewise Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, and Tarule (1986), who expanded on Perry’s work to study women’s epistemological development, found intersections of epistemology, intrapersonal, and interpersonal development. Their study demonstrated that in each epistemological perspective women experienced a new context in which to consider issues of identity, relationships, and authority. In the earliest positions—silence and received knowing—women’s sense of self was embedded in external definitions, and knowers sought gratification in pleasing others and measuring up to external standards because they lacked an authentic and centered self. The quest for self became primary in subjective knowing, but individuals lacked tools for expressing and supporting perspectives. They adopted procedural knowing, either in a separate or connected style, to deliberately analyze knowledge. Women integrated subjective and objective knowledge in constructed knowing—the final position—and considered questions of “how I want to think” and “who I want to be,” and achieved the fundamental insights of construc-tivist thought that ”all knowledge is constructed, and the knower is an intimate part of the known (Belenky, et al., p. 137, italics in original).

Many intrapersonal development theories also have a common emphasis on developing an internal, structurally mature sense of self as contrasted to an externally established identity that is determined by circumstances or internalized by early iden...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• PART ONE: THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS OF SELF-AUTHORSHIP
• PART TWO: MULTICULTURAL PERSPECTIVES ON SELF-AUTHORSHIP
• PART THREE: THEORETICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL CHALLENGES IN UNDERSTANDING AND ASSESSING SELF-AUTHORSHIP
• PART FOUR: FUTURE DIRECTIONS
• APPENDIX A
• CONTRIBUTORS
• INDEX
• Footnotes