This article examines higher education for peace inside the United Nations (UN). It offers an overview and synthesis of core concepts, organizing frameworks and theoretical premises in the field of peace and conflict studies (PACS) higher education and in the UN universities in particular, as the field aspires toward transformative learning and social justice. The article then critically analyzes the ways in which the field might perpetuate structural and cultural violence and offers implications for the UN universities. In these critiques, I call for further inquiry into the taken-for-granted assumptions of the field and suggest greater criticality along with enhanced empathy and hope for PACS education in the 21st century.
This literature review is intended to examine transformative learning within the context of academic libraries and its applications for librarians. Although the main audience is academic librarians who facilitate student learning, it may also be of interest to other practitioners and researchers who are interested in applying transformative learning across the disciplines. We analyzed relevant works on transformative learning from fields, such as education and library science. This article provides a history and definition of transformative learning and examines parallels between transformative learning and existing library and information research. Potential applications of transformative learning to instruction and reference services are examined. Transformative learning is an important theory in higher education with which librarians should be familiar. The new Association of College and Research Libraries’ Framework for Information Literacy in Higher Education implements several ideas related to transformative learning. The theory may help librarians connect with diverse, adult learners.
This article explores women’s midlife learning as an awakening of the self in the process of being in the world and interacting with others and uses the author’s personal experience of transformation as a developmental change with the emergence of personal growth and self-realization of a more complete, balanced, and fulfilled self. In the process, the women developed new identities and flourished with the realization of their potential. The women learned implicitly and incidentally from experience and through their bodily senses and emotions from being in the lived world and engaging with others. They appeared to practice mindfulness intuitively and used their inner resources, imaginations, and creativity to adapt to change and find new challenges and opportunities to take them into the next stage of life. The author uses personal construct theory to theorize how the women were able to initiate their own change and growth with minimal outside intervention.
In recent years, there has been a rapid rise in the number of universities offering students opportunities to study abroad. Traditional semester-long programs have been shortened with many new programs ranging anywhere from 1 to 8 weeks in length. The increased number of short-term programs has enabled professional degree programs, such as nursing, to increase student participation in these programs. These changes are supported by growing evidence of the impact of these programs on student learning, personal and professional development, and understanding of self as a global citizen. Utilizing Mezirow’s transformative learning theory to conceptualize critical reflection, this quantitative study examined the impact of six short-term study abroad programs on critical reflection as a core element of transformative learning. A modified version of the Reflection Questionnaire developed by Kember et al. was completed by 20 participants at 6 weeks following the completion of the study abroad experience. Participants were largely female (90%) and minority students (75%). The results showed that mean critical reflection scores across programs were moderately high (3.84/5.00). Nursing students who went to Haiti scored highest on critical reflection (4.70/5.00) compared to students in the other five programs. Reflective journaling and participation in service learning activities were linked to the highest critical reflection scores. Short-term study abroad programs support transformative learning for students representing a minority population and those in professional and traditional degree programs.
In this article, we investigate whether, and in what ways, the learning experiences in a capstone course in reflective teaching impact the perspective transformations (PT) of preservice teachers toward a diverse K-12 student population and the plans of preservice teachers to take future action as change agents. Using an adaptation of the Learning Activities Survey as a measure of PT and as a way to identify those learning experiences that may contribute to such transformations as well as textual analysis of participants’ reflective writing, we connect personal transformation and local and limited agency. Developing significant praxis may require additional learning experiences and time. Transformative learning theory is presented as a possible frame for developing meaningful learning experiences that impact a change in perspective of preservice teachers in their preparation programs.
This article discusses the processes and outcomes of inviting a group of undergraduate students to inhabit and then reflect upon peripheral learning spaces in university through a "publishing with students" exercise during an Undergraduate Research Summer School. The students engaged in conversation, discussion, reflection, and writing around their experiences of growing into the realization that they could become researchers. The emergent collegial dialogues crossed and intertwined traditional pathways and signposts for usual academic progression, reaffirming the value of creating alternative and irregular opportunities where transformative learning can occur.
The discipline of the arts has much to contribute to the field of conflict resolution. This article broadly investigates how artistic engagement facilitates transformative learning and the development of skills and capacities for more constructive engagement with conflict. Many scholar practitioners have acknowledged the widespread use of arts-based approaches to peacebuilding and conflict resolution. While it is important to know what forms of arts-based approaches are utilized today, more empirical work is needed to explain and evaluate how engagement with the arts could foster cooperative relationships and more constructive engagement with conflict even in contexts of intractable conflict. An initial review of literature, alongside examples of practice and personal reflections, highlights the restorative and transformative power of the arts to foster new perspectives, enhanced capacities for more constructive engagement with conflict, and ultimately, cooperative relationships.
This study is anchored on two positions: that every communication is multimodal and that different modalities within multimodal communication have particular affordances. Written and oral language and other modalities, such as body language and audio/visual media, are interwoven in classroom communication. What might it look like to strategically deploy particular modalities whose affordances predispose them to visualizing certain kinds of knowledge in the classroom? I propose for educators to purposefully employ multimodality for transformative learning. Through ethnographic approaches and multimodal interactional analysis, I analyze a possible link between multimodal pedagogy and transformative education, focusing on image-language entwinement, within an International Baccalaureate poetry classroom in Nairobi, Kenya. This article offers an illustrative resource for educators interested in intersections of transformative learning and multimodality.
In 2009, Preskill and Brookfield published Learning as a Way of Leading: Lessons from the Struggle for Social Justice that describes nine learning tasks characterizing organic leaders. These include being open to the contributions of others, critical reflection, supporting the growth of others, collective leadership, analyzing experience, questioning, democracy, sustaining hope in the face of struggle, and creating community. This research study connects the life experiences of selected Indiana Women of Achievement awardees to the leadership model but also shares characteristics that do not align with the model. This study highlights issues of how women’s leadership, social change, and transformation manifest throughout their life journeys. We present examples of the model through 18 stories: two women for each of the nine characteristics. Other themes also emerged, including strong connections to their families, determination, perseverance, and achievement of goals.
Using data from preservice teachers enrolled in a diversity course in a predominantly White teacher education program, researchers uncovered that diversity education was indeed a catalyst for preservice teachers to increase their diversity knowledge as well as the process of critically reflecting on their teaching and learning practices. The findings revealed that the teachers not only taught with cultural relevance in mind but also adopted a philosophy of education that incorporates social reconstructionism and transformative learning, viewing themselves as social justice advocates for children and families.
The study draws on life history, literacy studies, and ethnographic approaches to exploring social practices as a frame to explore the narratives of two UK adult literacy learners who provide a description of the value or otherwise of their engagement with a transformative curriculum and pedagogical approach. Whilst one of the learners reveals his frustration at the lack of transformative opportunities in his learning programme, the other offers illustration of how transformative learning can be encouraged and how it can actually transform the life of its beneficiaries. In essence, both case studies highlight some requirements of transformative learning. Bourdieu’s concepts of field, capitals, and habitus are applied; the critical elements of these concepts essentially being tools for consciousness raising and increasing the flow of capitals, including linguistic capital, which challenge the notion of spoilt identities based on neoliberal individual accountability that fails to address the structures and hierarchies of power.
Many think of Edith Stein as a phenomenological philosopher who experienced a dramatic religious conversion, but contemporary adult educators may also look to her as a model for the application of social activism based in theory. This article explores Stein’s continued relevance for adult educators who research and then try to apply key concepts related to transformative learning and social activism. The author first provides a context for her transformative learning experience, describes her social activism in 20th-century Germany, discusses how Stein integrated theory and practice, and then suggests key areas she addressed that could inform future research. Edith Stein left an unsurpassed but largely untapped legacy of adult education practice in three key areas for future research: how transformative learning can influence adult educators, the application of social activism in a tumultuous social–political environment, and the integration of theory and practice.
This study sought to analyze the experiences of participants in court-ordered parent education with the ultimate goal to identify a framework, which promotes learning that is transformative. Participants included 11 parents court ordered to attend parent education classes through the Department of Human Services. A basic qualitative design, which was comprised of a before-training interview, training, after-training interview, and follow-up interview, was used. Analysis of data, which included transcribed interviews, field notes, journal postings, and observations of parent–child interactions, revealed that most of the participants experienced a transformation of parenting style. Transformation was fostered through self-reflection and rational discourse in the form of journal writings, guided class discussions, and critical questioning. Findings suggest that transformative learning can occur in a mandated setting providing that the incentive is powerful enough and that transformative learning can be lasting in non-life-threatening situations, such as the potential loss of custody of one’s children.
The World Café (TWC), used as an effective conversational tool around the world, shares several tenets with other participatory approaches to learning and development. It has not been critiqued, however, for its insufficient attention to reflexivity, power differentials, and structural inequalities within its process, specifically in relation to TWC facilitators. As a group of women from diverse social locations and backgrounds committed to the pursuit of social justice, we sought this opportunity to explore and investigate the transformative learning capacities of TWC, with the broader goal of enhancing its usability in education and community settings. We reviewed and critiqued TWC conversation approach, suggesting stronger links to liberatory education and transformative learning theories. Using a participatory action research process leading to cocreated knowledge, we developed an Emancipatory Learning Charter, a new tool that can enhance the transformative learning potential of TWC.
Previous analyses of transformational learning (TL) focused on rational or nonrational processes such as critical reflection on an uncomfortable personal situation or emotional learning, respectively. In this phenomenological study, researchers examined existential dimensions of TL. Individual interviews were analyzed to identify the lived experiences of eight participants in a graduate seminar. Participants described their experience to be "different" from other courses and "relevant and applicable" to their lives. They found the "atmosphere" of the course to be "free" from institutional obligations and "open" to ideas. They were "collaborative" in exploring course content and "connected" with other students, "safe" to share perspectives and understandings, and "comfortable" to explore content in their own way. Study findings suggest that discomfort is not necessary for TL to occur when students build relationships and learn in a safe and open classroom climate and that such an environment supported spontaneous application of course content to student lives.
Faculty in a transdisciplinary graduate program in holistic health studies, which is grounded in transformational learning led a study abroad course in India. The focus of the course is on perspectives of health and healing in India, including an understanding of Yoga, meditation, Ayurvedic medicine, and Tibetan medicine. The purpose of this phenomenological research is to describe the experiences of 13 holistic health studies graduate students who participated in this graduate study abroad course. Qualitative data were collected from students at the time of application to the course, 1 month after returning from India, and 1 year later. In addition, student applications, posttrip reflection papers, photographs, notes taken by faculty at a 1-year reunion, and results of an electronic survey were used as data. Results suggest that students experienced "mind, body and spirit" transformations with reverberations on personal, community, and global levels.
In this article, I interrogate the changing forms that may be fundamental to transformative learning and how these are best chronicled and understood. Drawing on auto/biographical narrative research, I challenge the continuing primacy of a kind of overly disembodied, decontextualized cognition as the basis of transformation. Notions of epistemic shifts, for instance, and their central importance, can lack sufficient or convincing grounding in the complexities of whole people and their stories. I develop, instead, a psychosocial theory of recognition, drawing, especially, on critical theory and psychoanalysis: in this perspective, the experiencing self, in relationship, constitutes, agentically, the form that transforms, while fundamental changes in mind-set are deeply intertwined with shifts in inner–outer psychosocial dynamics. I challenge, in the process, some conventional boundaries between cognition and emotion, self and other, the psychological and sociocultural as well as collective and individual learning.