Content area
Full Text
This article describes three distinct yet interrelated elements of self-authorship: trusting the internal voice, building an internal foundation, and securing internal commitments. These elements, which emerged from longitudinal interviews with adults in their 30s, offer insights into the complexity and cyclical nature of self-authorship as well as provide guidance for how educators can assist college students in developing their internal voices to meet the challenges of adult life.
Self-authorship, or the internal capacity to define one's beliefs, identity, and social relations, has emerged in the past 15 years as a developmental capacity that helps meet the challenges of adult life. Robert Kegan (1994) articulated the developmental concept of self-authorship as a necessary foundation for adults to meet typical expectations they face at work, home, and school, such as the ability to be self-initiating, guided by their own visions, responsible for their experience, and able to develop interdependent relations with diverse others. My 21-year longitudinal study of young adults age 18 to 39 supports Kegan's stance that complex epistemological, intrapersonal, and interpersonal development is necessary for adults to build complex belief systems, to form a coherent sense of identity, and to develop authentic, mature relations with diverse others (Baxter Magolda, 2001). In their work roles, my participants were required to analyze data, critique multiple perspectives, understand contexts, and negotiate competing interests to make wise decisions upon which to base their practice. These challenges required an internal belief system that allowed them to consider but not be overwhelmed by external influence, a coherent identity that yielded the confidence to act on wise choices, and mature relations to collaborate productively with colleagues. Similarly, personal life challenges of parenting, partnering, and managing daily life required obtaining and critiquing multiple perspectives, managing ambiguity, balancing competing interests, and making wise choices.
Today's global society necessitates that adults engage in collaborative social relations with diverse others. These relations require intercultural maturity, which in turn requires epistemological, intrapersonal, and interpersonal complexity. For privileged adults, achieving intercultural maturity requires the ability to use multiple cultural frames (an epistemological capacity) and construct a nonracist, nonhomophobic, nonsexist identity (an intrapersonal capacity) to develop interdependent relations with diverse others (an interpersonal capacity; King & Baxter Magolda, 2005). For adults who experience oppression, the ability to deconstruct...