Læring og overskridelse af marginalisering. Studie af unge mænd med etnisk minoritetsbaggrund

English summary Learning and the transgression of marginalisation - A study of young men from ethnic minorities by Line Lerche Mørck The overall goal of the dissertation is to contribute to the development of a social practice theory of ?transgressive learning? that in Jean Lave?s terms does not naturalize and underwrite divisions of social inequality in our society (Lave 1996; 149). Action possibilities are analysed that promote the transgression of marginalisation and ethnic othering. The dissertation offers theoretical and practical perspectives for the development of practice with relevance for both education and other learning practices. The dissertation is of special interest for people doing research within or working within the field of social work. The transgressive learning of six wild street-level social workers was pursued over 2-3 years in a social work milieu in Copenhagen. The street-level workers, three of whom were young newcomers and three of whom were more experienced, are ?wild? in the sense that they have primarily become social workers through their participation and network in vivo, that is due to their being ?one of the lads? from Blågards Plads, and their participation as wild youth, resource persons and employees in social projects. In other words their learning grows out of a process where they both understand themselves as ?one of the lads? and as social workers. They are moving towards becoming more of a social worker and less of a lad through participation in the changing communities of social work, that they have themselves helped to create. This milieu has included projects such as ?Young in the Park?, ?The Street Pulse?, ?The Street Gang?, ?The Wild Young?, ?Wild Learning? and ?The Copenhagen Team?. Transgressive learning is also analysed within vocational education focusing specifically on two ethnic minority carpenter apprentices. The analysis emphasises the partiality and contradictions of transgression: the apprentices/pupils learn amongst other things to tolerate humiliation and tone down their appearance as ethnic other by, for example, not pointing to discrimination. In these ways they survive in education in the short term, yet simultaneously contribute to the reproduction of the conditions of their own marginalisation. In this way extremely contradictory conditions mean that none of the apprentices/pupils immediate action possibilities are optimal. Forms of boundary practices and connections to other carpenter related communities of practice in and outside of the education that can expand the contradictory conditions and promote new possibilities for transgressive learning, are also analysed. The study of the street level workers? changing communities of practice and the follow-up study of the eight young men aged between 16 and 33, all members of ethnic minorities, gives the analysis of transgressive learning an empirical weight and complexity. Four key questions guide the analysis of the transgressive learning of these so called ?primary persons?: · How do personal trajectories, various possibility zones and orientations in life and learning reflect important steps on the way to transgression of marginal positions? · What are the significant communities of practice and action contexts, and how are they part of the transgressive learning by which the primary persons become social street workers or carpenters? · What are the significant transgressive and marginalising aspects of societal discourses and local practise ideologies? · How is practice ? in the form of participation and discourse/ideology ? reflected in specific changes in the primary persons? ?coming to an understanding with self, us and others?? Social work practitioners and some of the persons I followed have participated as particularly active co-researchers, partly by facilitating access to the milieu and being involved with the selection of primary persons, and partly by commenting throughout on the dissertation?s focus and analysis. The social work milieu and the dissertation?s primary persons have been pursued primarily through follow-up group interviews and secondarily through the researcher?s participation in monthly ?lodge-meetings? within Wild Learning, research meetings, visits and informal talk at the vocational school and in the named social projects. Texts and articles from the Wild Learning homepage have also been utilised as empirical material.