Until all the pieces fit: A hermeneutic phenomenology of the informal learning of selected foster parents in northeastern Pennsylvania
Open Access
- Author:
- Wehler, Bruce Alan
- Graduate Program:
- Adult Education
- Degree:
- Doctor of Education
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- August 12, 2014
- Committee Members:
- Melody M Thompson, Dissertation Advisor/Co-Advisor
Melody M Thompson, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
Gary Kuhne, Committee Member
Fred Michael Schied, Committee Member
David Lee, Committee Member - Keywords:
- foster parenting
informal learning
hermeneutic phenomenology
situated learning theory
constructivist learning theory - Abstract:
- All fifty (50) states have a formal certification process for those seeking to become foster parents. In every state, part of this process is to undergo a more formalized education (training) process, including a specific number of annual training hours, in order to acquire and maintain annual certification to remain foster parents. Pennsylvania, for example, has an annual requirement that foster parents undergo six (6) hours of approved formal training. There are linear, detailed, measurable requirements for a person to become a foster parent, but becoming a foster parent and being a foster parent are not synonymous terms or concepts or experiences. How, in fact, does an adult learn to be a foster parent? The place of more formalized training in the process is well documented. The same cannot be said of informal learning that is integral to the lived experience of foster parenting. What is, then, this experience of informal learning for foster parents? According to Eraut (2010), informal learning can provide a “simple contrast to formal learning or training” which allows “greater flexibility or freedom for learners” and that “recognizes the social significance of learning from other people” as a means for utilization of greater individual agency (p. 247). This may occur as foster parents talk with one another about the children in their care. This may take place when foster parents share their experiences with other foster parents in any number of settings. This may happen “on-the-job” as foster parents literally figure out how to be foster parents through the daily lived experience of being foster parents. Informal learning can be powerful and personal, everywhere present and vital to the experience of being foster parents. To complete this study, I utilized a phenomenological research method in an attempt to uncover and describe the created meanings and meaning structures of the lived experience of foster parenting.