SYMP 151 - Borderer spaces in the construction of learners' identities

The main aim of this symposium is to show how different borderline experiences embedded in educative processes suppose not only cognitive changes but an important contribution in the construction of learners’ identities. All papers develop processes where learning encompasses "the integration of cognitive and affective elements, which always presupposes the presence of emotions" (Daniel 2008, p. 43); illustrating what Vygotsky described as perezhivanie. In all, the borderline experience is provided by the learner’s participation in hybrid settings where different cultural traditions intertwine. In the first three papers, the activity is La Clase Mágica Project (LCM), in its different and international mutations. Paper one focuses on how the foundational LCM has developed historically to create sustainable environments for learner identity construction in disenfranchised communities along California. The second paper concentrates on how LCM version in Bogotá works for reducing the gap between language knowledge of biodiversity that exists in vernacular identities and on a scientific-globalized level. The next paper discusses a service-learning experience on university students, using the concept of real learning as a framework to examine the process of identity change in Barcelona and Seville’s 5D-LCM versions. The fourth paper shows how using TIC and radio production helps to build agency and new identities in minority children through innovatively combining micro-ethnography and sociocultural psychology with a semiotic focus. Our last paper introduces a more experiential and autobiographical account of a transition and turning point experience in the academic identity construction of the author.