Experience and experiential learning: The specificity of the acquired experiential learnings

Abstract

The aim of the article is to systematize and to analyse some elements related to the problematics of experience and learning experience. Four questions orient the systematization and analysis: What is experience? Does experience promote learning? If so, how does it happen? What are the inherent difficulties of studying acquired experiential learning? The emergency of policies and practices based on valorization and recognition of acquired experiential learning has contributed to a public domain of “experience” and this has resulted in a tendency for its naturalization and, consequently, difficulties for critical analysis of such social practices. Therefore, it becomes fundamental to investigate such theme in order to understand the processes of experiential learning and to consolidate practices of recognition of the acquired experiential learning. However, investigating this theme is complex and is marked by the complexity and specificity of it.

Key words: experience, experiential learning, study of the experience.