Aracelie_Reading Pt I_23 Feb_”Making Their Own Way…”

Posted by on February 21, 2010 
Filed under Reading logs

Making Their Own Way:  Narratives for Transforming Higher Education to Promote Self-Development by Marcia B. Baxter Magolda

This book is broken into two parts – The Journey Toward Self-Authorship and Promoting Self-Authorship in Higher Education.  Self-authorship is defined as “the ability to collect, interpret, and analyze information and reflect on one’s own beliefs in order to form judgments” (Baxter Magolda, 1998, p.143).  Baxter Magolda covers the lives of participants from the time they entered college in 1986 until (for the 39 who continued with the study) the age of 30. She presents her discussion of her longitudinal study using narratives from interviews she conducted with the participants throughout this time period.

The first section of the book, The Journey Toward Self-Authorship, starts by identifying three core questions that the author found affected the participants during their 20s – “How Do I Know?”, “Who Am I?”, and “How Do I Construct Relationships with Others?”  She equated each of these to dimensions for which literature already exists – the epistemological, intrapersonal, and interpersonal dimensions, respectively.  Reading the book, one finds that the epistemological dimension is what the participants mostly experienced in their college years, and the other two dimensions began to develop more after college.   Within the discussion on the college years, there are four types of knowing covered that are referenced throughout the rest of the book.  They are absolute (right or wrong), transitional (uncertainty is discovered, but only exists in particular areas), independent (sources of authority are now in question, uncertainty grows), and contextual (consider all perspectives, research answers, and integrate own opinions).  Contextual knowing became more prominent in the interviews after the participants graduated from college.

Upon completing college, the participants embarked on finding careers, continuing education, and starting relationships.   However, because most weren’t yet in the stages of contextual knowing, they began their journeys through the four phases to self-authorship – following formulas, crossroads, becoming the author of one’s life, and internal foundation.  Two points developed through the phases are the participants’ internal voices emerging and the reduction of the impact of external influences on the participants.

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