Autobiographical Narratives of Online Learners: Emergence of an Intercultural Perspective

Abstract

In order to account for the diversity which is characteristic of distance learners, the following question was posed, how do distance learners live their diversity, from their autobiographical narratives? A lab at a distance for autobiograhical narrative was set to analyse this issue. A script for the genre was designed and sent to 50 voluntary students via e-mail. The students were part of a High School program offered by a public distance university from Mexico. 3 narratives were selected out of 33 sent on the whole by students. Analysis of the available data and discusion of the results based on theory was carried out. The results show a visibility of the diversity that is characteristic of distance learners, but also an emergence of the intercultural perspective in virtual context, a fact that requires further research. The paper concludes that the distance modality faces, among others, the challenge to take educational action so as to socialise culture taking management and collective intelligence processes as a starting point.