The Emergence of Learner Autonomy as an Educational Concept In order to understand the meaning of the term learner autonomy, it is important to understand its background and its emergence as a pedagogical concept. This development has taken place over a period of at least 40 years, and has been subject to changes in education, science, and also broader political and societal developments. Below I will describe these developments individually, bearing in mind that together these developments did not take place linearly.
Autonomy and Political Developments in Education
Autonomy as a political concept originated perhaps as early as with Aristotle and has, mainly through Kant, played an important role in both the philosophical and practical expression of political developments in the 20th century. After WW II a great number of minority rights movements (feminist, ethnic, etc.) sprang up that used the concept to express their ideas about the right to freedom of choice. They regarded education as an empowering tool that would instill in people an awareness of these issues. As Jane (1977, as cited by Holec 1981) says:
Adult education should become an instrument for arousing an increasing sense of awareness and liberation in man, and, in some cases, an instrument for changing the environment itself. From the idea of man ‘product of his society’, one moves to the idea of man as ‘producer of his society’. (p.3)
In this view it is the individual who is responsible and active in shaping his or her own life and therefore that of others. Education has to prepare learners for this role, which involves teaching them the skills necessary to take control over the processes and content of learning. In the words of Collins and Hammond (1991): “it begins with the assumption that the ultimate purpose of education is the betterment of society, and that critical awareness and social action to promote emancipation are desirable results of any educational intervention” (p.13). A later development of this thinking is the Language Awareness Movement (Hawkins 1981, 1984; James & Garrett, 1991) and related approaches (see also Van Lier, 1995). These recognised the political influence of ideas that learners hold about learning, their own and others peoples’ language, its use and its consequences. Their aim is to increase peoples’ awareness of the political aspect of language. These developments have had a considerable influence on the concept of learner autonomy.
