THE PRESENTATION OF THE SELF IN ADULTS AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL NARRATIVES WITH LOW EDUCATIONAL QUALIFICATIONS

Abstract

In this article we analyze the autobiographical speech of adults with low educational qualifications focusing on the way they justify their self. Our goal is to identify the reflective features that give content to the self-identity and how it is modified by the variation of the stories that build up the personal story. For this purpose, we used an analytic corpus constituted by one hundred autobiographical documents written on Portuguese Accreditation of Prior Experiential Learning System between 2006 and 2012. The results revealed two different ways of presenting the self. A first mode corresponds to the description of how the subject has become himself highlighting the childhood experiences that shaped the individual character. The second narrative mode corresponds to the description of learning trough the different social roles assumed, highlighting how gender differences are reflected in the arguments.