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When writing about motivation, it is a difficult task to find the literature which would coherently describe the phenomenon. There are many approaches to the subject and the best option seems to be to take most of them into consideration. The research

undertaken in this thesis employs some psychological theories concerning motivation, as well as sociological approaches. Relying on West’s research about adults’

motivations to enter higher education, there are four main psychologically based approaches to motivation.

The first of them is derived from Jungian ideas of lifecycle theory, emphasizing chronological stages in human development. Each stage has its own needs and demands and there is a need to find meaning, or increase satisfaction, in life, to integrate self and the drive towards wholeness.

Another approach is derived from Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. The lowest levels are usually fulfilled during childhood by parents or carers. The highest needs appear later in human development and only when the lowest have been satisfied. There is a need, appearing in adulthood, for achievement and confidence as well as for the self actualisation.

A third approach concentrates around the differences in personality traits. What it means is that people can engage in education for different reasons, according to their characters and temperaments. There are social needs, like longing for contact with others, because of feeling lonely, or marginalized. There are people who desire development and who are ‘learning oriented’. There are personalities highly devoted to the particular subject they want to gain knowledge of.

The consecutive research strand is about the decision-making theory for interpreting the sequence of the choice of decisions that an individual makes. It is not focusing on the origins of the observed behaviour but rather on what can be empirically tested, on the observed actions. (Levinson, 1978, Maslow, 1968, Houle, 1961).

Sean Courney presents a sociological perspective on motivation to learn, perceiving it as a way of managing change, particularly at times of crisis. Change may be due to personal or generational difficulties, or even national, economic, or systemic upheaval.

Each crisis which leads to fragmentation of personality and deep questioning of the self and identity might provide an opportunity to learn and increase self-awareness whilst in transition towards a better understanding of the self and integration of the individual.

This theory strongly correlates to the work of a Polish psychologist and psychiatrist called Dąbrowski, who developed the theory of Positive Disintegration. This theory describes a person’s development as a result of accumulated experiences. Dąbrowski (1986) also identified a very interesting aspect of human development, which is the way a person faces his own anxieties, and resolves the challenges. Each crisis or change in life trajectory leads to personality disintegration according to Dabrowski (1986). He

calls it ‘positive disintegration’, if the person can achieve a positive and developmental solution to the problem faced. This is the vital developmental process.

Dabrowski also developed the ‘developmental potential’ concept, which describes the factors unique to each individual, when striving towards autonomous personality development. Those factors include innate abilities, talents and the individual’s drive toward autonomy, and each one is very different to the other. Getting back to Courtney, he suggests that individuals are engaged in the struggle to reconstitute a self or to build a new identity. This can be achieved through work and education. In addition, other people are necessary and essential to an individual’s success in this struggle. As Honneth argues, the role of others, significant people who recognize and support the individual’s efforts in proper time, is invaluable. Courtney as well defines learning in social terms, underlying the role of significant people and a supportive culture.

Giddens adds that the context in which an individual happens to live nowadays, constantly brings people to such crises but creates also the opportunities for self development. Sociologists like Giddens and Bauman are in agreement about the belief that global economic forces are changing and deskilling communities, forcing individuals to take risk and construct more of their meanings and biographies in conditions of distressing insecurity. Giddens explains the concept of ‘reflexive project of the self’, as the strive to sustain a coherent self, in a continuously fluctuating, revised, biographical narrative, as a survival necessity (Giddens, 1991). The secure and coherent self is open to new experiences and to becoming ‘the fully functioning person’ (Rogers, 1994). There are people who are much braver and more open to taking a risk and face the challenge. Those are my respondents. To employ some psychoanalytic theory, the quality of the basic relationships with main carer in the childhood and the environment which enables children to progress towards a securer sense of selves plays crucial role in her ability to cope with life challenges in adulthood (Wolf, 1988, Frosh, 1991, Bowlby, 1991).

4.9.1 Methods and Narratives

The research explored motivations and individual stories through the interviews. The conversations were initially semi structured, but over time some of them became unstructured, and interviewees were allowed to tell their stories in the most comfortable way for them, sometimes diverging from the main theme. Their stories became open ended and reflexive. What students tell about their lives and motives is never complete and evolves over time, the same as life does. The transcripts are open to further

interpretation and what has been placed in this volume is seen greatly through the researcher’s own story. There is a need to admit that the stories told by the research respondents were resonating in some aspects with the writer’s own narrative. It does not mean though that the research is not true in scientific terms.

The assumption in the present study is that autobiography, far from being the enemy of insight and profound knowledge, is a powerful and natural resource to be used to understand others’ life histories; and that empathy and relatedness are essential to telling stories. We constantly employ our experience to make sense of what others say and our social relationships in everyday encounters. In research, objectivist, detached methods can alienate, disempower and silence people and impoverish their narratives and their potential contribution to understanding them (Oakley, 1981). The capacity for dialogue and shared insight is strangled in its infancy. (West, 1996, p.19).

Apart from implementing the right tools for interpreting the data collected, there is a great need to be able to understand the learners themselves, their inner selves. This task demands imaginative empathy and the ability to immerse oneself into someone else’s world. It is the ability to notice the insecurity others feel and the demands put on them by the ever changing and ‘fluid’ world around. It is also the ability to detach oneself when there is the need, as some stories are very different from the researcher’s point of view, as human personalities are diverse. The narratives revealed some of the psychological and social issues, but they do not create any final conclusion that might be applied to the whole cohort of immigrant students in general. It is about the potential in each person to create her own path of life and her own meanings and agency. It is about empowering herself and getting the support at the right time from some significant others. It is about the life twists and turns and the strength which enables people to challenge the post modern life conditions they happen to live in.