Abstract

CAVACO, Carmen. Biographic research with unschooled adults: researcher-participant relationship. Rev. Port. de Educação [online]. 2020, vol.33, n.2, pp.261-278.  Epub Dec 31, 2020. ISSN 0871-9187.  https://doi.org/10.21814/rpe.19730.

We analyze the relationship between the researcher and the participants involved in research. The text aims to analyze the methodological dimension resulting from a biographical research, centered on the process of learning of unschooled adults. We developed one biographical research, through biographical interviews, with eight unschooled adults, in Portugal. In this research, we had the assumption that unschooled adults have knowledge, resulting from experience, acquired throughout their life. That experience can be described and socialized through the biographical interview. The research allowed us to understand the importance of experiential learning in the lives of unschooled adults and the use of biographical interviews to access their life paths and knowledge. The relationship generated in the biographical interview proved to be specific and complex, placing the researcher in the face of difficulties and challenges. We can conclude that the researcher should be aware of the specificity and complexity of the relationship in the biographical interview. That is essential for the researcher to overcome difficulties and challenges, as well as to ensure the co-construction of scientific knowledge, based on a significant human relationship. This text reveals the formative dimension of the biographical research for the researcher.

Keywords : Biographical research; Unschooled adults; Researcher-participant relationship.

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