My doctoral reseach uses narrative inquiry, positioning and valuation theories to explore the ways in which people ascribe value to their lifelong learning practices, when those practices are mediated by a multiplicity of everyday digital techologies. I aim to provide new insights into the value of learning practices which extend beyond but remain entangled with the commodified forms offered through educational qualifications.

Lifelong learning has multiple and contested definitions, shaped by decades of ideological framing by national and international policy bodies. It can be seen as an anticipatory regime (Adams et al., 2009; Amsler & Facer, 2017) in which technologies are understood to be rapidly advancing and learning is required either to defend against technological tyranny (Faure et al., 1972) or to prepare for an anticipated onslaught of oncoming skills needs (Black, 2022; Bound, 2023; OECD, 2021). But lifelong learning is also a lifewide, diverse and deeply personal practice, drawing on and arising from all contexts of life and their learning potential, an ongoing process of re-constructing the meanings by which we live our lives, shaping our understandings of self, world, and their interactions (Alheit, 2022; Jackson, 2011; Jarvis, 2007).

Whatever purpose is ascribed to lifelong learning practices, technology use and advancement are always implicated in their undertaking. I therefore take a postdigital approach, acknowledging and foregrounding the socio-technical role of digital, internet-connected technologies in mediating processes of learning and value creation (Jandrić et al., 2023; Knox, 2019). Broadly I define "lifelong learning" as learning undertaken outside of traditional formal education, by adults across diverse stages and domains of life.

In 2025, I faciltated narrative interviews with ten acquainted pairs of people engaged in a wide range of life phases, from retirement, to early parenting, to the first year out of secondary school. Each participant pair had shared a context of learning and had chosen one another as storytelling partners, enabling the dialogic negotiation of value between them. Participants' stories are rich, diverse and layered, demonstrating pragmatic, critical and creative engagement with a range of technology tools and platforms to pursue valued practices, from finding God to growing daphne, from reading archaic handwriting to mastering trapeze.

Now in the final year of the project, I am in the thick of analysis and write-up. My intent is to examine the evaluative features of each narrative, as well as the roles of the digital infrastructures within them in mediating these valuations. I hope to present my work-in-progress at this doctoral roundtable for advice on:

• Effective, compelling and ethical approaches to representing idiographic education research
• Tools for analysis of digital infrastructures
• Potential opportunities to disseminate this work for impact.