I WANT TO LOVE HOW I DO LEARN: A PHENOMENOLOGICAL STUDY OF ADULT LEARNERS WITH GENERAL LEARNING DISABILITIES AND THEIR GOALS FOR POSTSECONDARY EDUCATION

A subset of individuals with learning disabilities is currently prevented from accessing postsecondary education; these individuals experience general learning disabilities, or GLD (Greenspan, 2017, p. 117). GLD is not a formal disability category in K-12 special education; individual students might not be eligible for academic supports and accommodations in K-12 or in postsecondary education based on this description. Individuals with GLD encounter significant barriers both accessing and finding success in postsecondary education. Qualitative research involving adults with GLD is lacking in available literature, as is theoretical analysis of their experiences. My research is a phenomenological study based on the experiences of ten adult learners with GLD who had a strong desire to participate in postsecondary education but often found themselves thwarted due to admissions requirements. The ten participants, each in a set of three interviews, were asked to reflect upon their understanding of themselves as learners in formal K-12 settings, their personal areas of mastery in adulthood, and their hopes to change as learners by participating in postsecondary education. Analysis of the interview transcripts resulted the following insights: the participants were highly aware of their difficulties in formal education settings (self-aware outsiders); the participants were actively engaged in pursuing valuable information outside of school (directors of their own learning); and the participants hoped to gain confidence as well as skills by participating in postsecondary education (claiming learner identity). Five of the ten participants identified as people of color. Tenets of Disability Critical Race Theory (DisCrit) and other concepts impacting multiply marginalized students (hope theory, critical hope, and intellectual activism) informed the analysis of the participants’ experiences.