Abstract
This article investigates students’ experiences of learning about privilege and oppression in the context of an introductory university course in civic engagement and global citizenship. Participants included 24 students enrolled in the course during either the 2013–2014 or the 2014–2015 academic year. The authors collected data through pretests, students’ course work, posttests, and focus groups administered at the end of the course. Using Mezirow’s theory of transformative learning combined with Curry-Stevens’s pedagogy for the privileged, and employing thematic analysis to interpret data, the authors found that several students experienced transformative learning specifically in relation to philosophical, psychological, epistemic, and moral–ethical habits of mind. We provide examples of this learning while also considering limitations of students’ learning.
Introduction
This study asks, “What are students’ experiences of learning about their own privilege (and oppression) in preparation for carrying out community engagement opportunities?” and “How does this learning experience frame students’ choices about their community engagement activities?” We investigate students’ experiences of learning, and applying lessons, about privilege and oppression in an introductory course in civic engagement and global citizenship at a medium-sized Canadian university. Using our framework that draws on transformative learning and Curry-Stevens’s pedagogy for the privileged, we argue that some students experienced transformative learning, specifically in relation to philosophical, psychological, epistemic, and moral–ethical habits of mind. As educators, we are interested in understanding students’ experiences of learning about their own and others’ oppression and privilege, so that we can know whether we are preparing students for community engagement in ways we see as appropriate, that is, in ways that align with a social justice orientation to engaging as a global citizen. Further, we are curious about whether students’ experiences of learning about privilege shape their choices of engagement opportunities and how they understand themselves as engaged citizens or community members. Our research captures a snapshot of students’ processes of transformative learning. We provide a set of exemplary reflections that we believe are indicative of transformative learning because they highlight understandings of personal and systemic privilege and oppression. We close by discussing some means of developing and evaluating students’ capacities for critical reflection and its impact on their plans for engagement opportunities.
Background
Theorists and practitioners have explored the fruitful overlap between service learning and transformative learning. Teaching about and against privilege forms an important part of transformative, social justice approaches to community engagement and service learning. And the literature offers some very useful frameworks for understanding the processes through which students learn about their own privilege (Dunlap, Scoggin, Green, & Davi, 2007; Catlett & Proweller, 2011; Seider, 2008; see also, Curry-Stevens, 2007; van Gorder, 2007; Middleton, Anderson, & Banning, 2009). For example, Kiely (2005) offers “a theoretical framework for explaining how students experience the process of transformational learning in service-learning” (p. 5). So, while informative, existing frameworks focus either on students’ community engagement as a learning experience or on students’ experiences of learning about their own privilege unrelated to community engagement. As such, we found no research focused specifically on how to employ a semester-long course to prepare students for engagement opportunities that expand beyond service, to include seeking meaningful opportunities to engage in social change making. Hence, the following question drives our research: “What are students’ experiences of learning about their own privilege (and oppression) in preparation for carrying out community engagement opportunities?”
To broach both this question and our related curiosity about the extent to which students’ learning experiences frame their preferences for engagement opportunities, the framework for our research draws on and engages with two distinct, yet related, bodies of literature. Because of our interest in students’ awareness of their own privilege, we begin from the broad framework of transformative learning (Mezirow, 2012; O’Sullivan, 1999). We also adopt aspects of Curry-Stevens’s (2007) pedagogy for the privileged to think about students’ process of learning about privilege and oppression as it related to themselves and others. We use Mezirow’s theory specifically to consider how his “habits of mind” apply to the specific context of an introductory course intended to prepare students for carrying out social justice–oriented engagement opportunities.
Service, Community Engagement, and Global Citizenship
Because of the context in which our research takes place—that is, the introductory course for a university-based certificate program in civic engagement and global citizenship—we are interested in how and what students learn before they take part in community engagement projects locally and/or globally. To ground our approach, we align ourselves with scholars who describe global citizenship as “awareness, caring, and embracing cultural diversity, while promoting social justice and sustainability, coupled with a sense of responsibility to act” (Katzarska-Miller et al., 2012 in Snider, Reysen, & Katzarska-Miller, 2013, p. 1600). However, to counter the stagnant nature of this definition, and to evidence our commitment to students’ development, we match this description with Matthews’s (2013) idea of global citizenship as “a mode of relationality, as opposed to a stable category of the human” (p. 101). This suggests that global citizenship is practiced and developed. It also supports the idea that a relational understanding of global citizenship “might raise new ways of approaching issues of social difference…” (Matthews, 2013, p. 101), an important point when considering the framework of transformative learning, which we elaborate below. However, in part because there is not an agreed-upon definition of global citizenship, we do not impose one precise definition of global citizenship on students completing the course. Instead, students read about and discuss different ways of thinking about global citizenship. Within this flexibility, we nevertheless operate from a social justice framework that acknowledges both the intersections of privilege and oppression at work in global contexts and the limitations of a charity model of community engagement.
Many service learning, community engagement, and citizenship-focused programs in higher education operate within a social justice framework (Mitchell, 2008; see also Catlett & Proweller, 2011; Mendel-Reyes, 1998; Mills, 2012; Ringstad, Leyva, Garcia, & Jasek-Rysdahl, 2012; Stanton, 2008; Westheimer & Kahne, 2004). These programs seek to create social change, empower community partners, and subvert the us–them divide between educational institutions and community organizations (Mitchell, 2008). However, not all students begin these programs sharing this social justice perspective (Moely, Furco, & Reed, 2008; Seider, Gillmor, & Rabinowicz, 2010). Many students at our university hold a position of privilege relative to the community members with whom they will interact during their engagement opportunities. An important part of their preparation therefore consists of learning about their own privilege and how that might affect their interactions with others during their engagement opportunities. Fostering the reflective dispositions, critical attitudes, and political understandings integral to a social justice outlook is therefore critical. The framework we employ for interpreting students’ experiences relies primarily on Mezirow’s theory of transformative learning and on Curry-Stevens’s pedagogy for the privileged.
The combined application of these theories to a social justice model of community engagement and global citizenship is unique, but this constellation of theoretical positions is not arbitrary. Although the two are distinct, Curry-Stevens’s pedagogy for the privileged draws on Mezirow’s theory. Curry-Stevens herself notes that there are “similarities between current thinking on ideological transformation in the citizenship learning literature and findings from [her] research” (2007, p. 40). That is, many discussions of leadership and citizenship also focus on a shift from individualism, self-centeredness, social disengagement, and an uncritical acceptance of inequality to collectivism, a concern for the common good, social engagement, and a critique of inequalities (Curry-Stevens, 2007, pp. 40–41). Similarly, the literature on community-engaged and service learning recognizes a distinction between charity and social change (or social justice) approaches. For example, we can characterize a charity model as grounded in a drive to provide solutions for others’ problems as perceived by the charitable actor and a social change model as an approach that respects the autonomy and agency of community members (see Mitchell, 2008; Morton, 1995). More colloquially, this distinction is sometimes described as the difference between doing for and doing with. In the next section, we describe elements of our theoretical framework in more detail.
Transformative Learning
Transformative learning involves trading in some of our beliefs and ways of thinking for better beliefs and better ways of thinking or as Mezirow (2012) states, “[t]ransformative learning refers to transforming a problematic frame of reference to make it more dependable in our adult life by generating opinions and interpretations that are more justified” (p. 85). Having more robust justifications—that is, better reasons for thinking our beliefs are true—makes a frame of reference (beliefs and ways of knowing) “better.” For Mezirow, transformative learning amounts to rationally examining our beliefs and the justifications that support them and coming to hold more rational beliefs.
However, our social justice orientation cautions us against such a laudatory and unqualified use of rationality as the sole criterion of value in a theory of transformative learning. 1 Oppressor populations have too often used “rationality” as the marker of “personhood” or “civilization” to justify their brutal treatment of other populations (i.e. women, slaves, Indigenous populations, etc.). Acknowledging this history, O’Sullivan (1999) offers an alternative theory of transformative learning in which a “better” frame of reference relies on a cosmology “that is designed to initiate a deep planetary consciousness” (p. 207). O’Sullivan’s idea of transformative learning involves revealing and addressing the problematic understanding of “the planet as a global marketplace” (p. 207) as well as the oppressive conditions created by and through dominant cultures (particularly patriarchy, racial dominance, class structure, and anthropocentrism). For example, he describes the need for transformative education to “show how globalizing and ‘restructuring’ are clearly an impediment to a just society” (p. 166) and suggests that “anti-racist education must define, conceptualize and perceive ‘difference’ from the standpoint of those who occupy the margins of society and continually have to resist their marginality through collective action” (p. 162). Our own understanding of a “better” frame of reference aligns much more closely with O’Sullivan’s emphasis on illuminating and addressing oppressive societal structures. We should note that this social justice perspective does not reject rationality. To the contrary, such a position derives from a rational critique of the assumptions that underlie purportedly “rational” or “scientific” theories (i.e., of race, gender, or sexuality). In the end, we do not reject the importance of rationality as a normative element in a theory of transformative learning (i.e., as a component of what makes a frame of reference better), but we neither adopt it uncritically nor accept it as the sole criterion for what makes one frame of reference better than another.
Despite our critique of rationality as the sole normative element of a theory of transformative learning, we continue to rely on Mezirow’s theory for a descriptive account of the process of transformative learning. In Mezirow’s transformative learning theory, transformation refers to the revision of our frame of reference—the beliefs and ways of thinking that contextualize our interpretation of our experiences and the world in which we live. This frame of reference consists of different habits of mind—habitual ways of thinking informed by already accepted beliefs. Mezirow characterizes several distinct yet interrelated habits of mind, four of which we are concerned with here. Philosophical habits of mind refer to our concepts. As a teacher, my philosophical habit of mind will include a definition of learning and what practices support it. Psychological habits of mind include beliefs about one’s self and one’s identity. In understanding myself as a teacher, I rely on other self-conceptions, for example, I might think of myself as a “good listener,” an “engaging speaker,” or a “fair marker.” Epistemic habits of mind relate to what we count as knowledge and what we see as sources of knowledge. My epistemic habits will include the methods and evidence I accept in support of what learning is and whether my practices as a teacher are helping or hindering it. For example, I might look at student evaluations or get feedback from peer observations. Finally, moral–ethical habits of mind include my beliefs about right and wrong and good and bad. So, for example, I could see my vocation as fulfilling a moral obligation to others and to society or I could see teaching as nothing more than a way to pay the bills. Either view would rely on assumptions about the moral value of education.
Transformation, according to Mezirow, comes about through a process of critical reflection and discourse and ends in reflective action informed by a more rational way of thinking. Mezirow (2012) refers to transforming a frame of reference as reframing, which can take an objective or subjective mode, where either mode of reframing requires critical reflection. Objective reframing requires reflection on others’ assumptions, such as noticing a classmate’s strong notion of individual responsibility in their 2 self-narrative. Subjective reframing focuses on the self by bringing into question one’s own assumptions (about one’s self-narrative, social systems, organizations/institutions, relationships, etc.). Reframing for O’Sullivan (1999) would tend towards revealing dominant cultures as problematic. As such, subjective reframing would include changes in how a student thinks about themselves within classist, racist, patriarchal, and/or colonial structures.
For Mezirow (2012), these two modes of critical reflection (objective and subjective) combine with discourse and reflective action to constitute transformative learning. Discourse, according to Mezirow, contributes to how we justify our beliefs. “We often become critically reflective of our assumptions or those of others and arrive at a transformative insight, but we need to justify our new perspective through discourse” (p. 85). Discourse consists in the give and take of reasons—providing support for and defending our beliefs. Ideally, participating in discourse of this kind allows us to test and shore up our beliefs—rejecting those for which we lack justification.
The final piece in the process of transformative learning comes through reflective action—behavior informed by critical reflection and discourse. In an ideal situation, a student would change their behavior immediately to act in a way informed by the beliefs for which they have the best reasons. However, this process may also be delayed or result in subtle, if any, change (Mezirow, 2012). We can imagine subtle change in a student who, taking an introductory course in women’s studies, comes to hold justified beliefs about the problem with sexist behavior in intimate relationships but who first acts on these beliefs months or even years later. In the case of a delayed response, a student might not exhibit reflective action if they develop a “reasoned reaffirmation of an existing pattern of action” (p. 87). For example, seemingly contradictory findings in two scientific studies may lead them to question their belief in the scientific method as a reliable means of producing knowledge. But upon further reflection and consideration of variations in theoretical and methodological approaches, they may reaffirm their belief rather than abandon it for another. Adding this component, transformative learning is about the process of deciding on an action based on justified beliefs, critically reflected on, and tested in the sphere of public discourse.
Transformation as such is difficult to pin down because it takes place at an undefined time. Mezirow’s original theory of transformative learning emphasized the importance of epochal events. An epochal event occurs when we experience a severe dissonance between our experience and an existing habit of mind. However, Cranton (2006) points to the possibility of transformation taking an incremental, less dramatic, form. For example, the women’s studies student may have observed others’ relationships critically in high school, taken part in conversations testing various beliefs over the course of their women’s studies course, and at some point, begun a process of critical self-reflection that allowed them to eventually act on their new beliefs in the context of their own relationship. Thus, the when of transformative learning is thus difficult to locate. And we can imagine transformative learning coming about through a combination of small incremental changes, everyday interactions, as well as discernable “Aha!”-moments and life-changing insights.
The example of the young women’s studies student highlights the fact that transformative learning does not necessarily take the form of a straightforward, step-wise process in which a student progresses toward actions grounded in justified beliefs vetted through critical reflection and discourse. Rather, as Mezirow (2012) points out, “critical reflection, discourse, and reflective action always exist in the real world in complex institutional, interpersonal, and historical settings, and these inevitably significantly influence the possibilities for transformative learning and shape its nature” (p. 88). The messy, real-world context in which we learn keeps the process of transformative learning from being neat and tidy. So, we should not expect to easily identify whether, and when, transformative learning is taking place. However, we can still examine students’ course work and reflections on their learning to consider whether any explicit examples of transformative learning are possible in the context of a one-semester introductory course on citizen engagement and global citizenship.
Transformative Learning in the Context of Privilege and Oppression
Mezirow’s distinction between objective and subjective reframing maps onto a distinction between two trends in the literature on transformative learning. Brookfield (2005) exemplifies one line of thinking, which emphasizes the social context of learning and draws heavily upon critical theory. Similarly, O’Sullivan’s (1999) theory emphasizes the context of learning. Another line of thinking focuses on the role of the individual in learning and finds inspiration in theories of depth psychology (see, e.g., Dirkx, 1991; Dirkx, 2012). Learning about privilege and oppression however requires both (1) understanding the social world as shaped by systems of disadvantage and (2) placing oneself within that social world and acknowledging the implications of one’s social position. For example, if a student is going to understand their privilege as a White male, it will not be enough for them to study the social structures that produce oppression nor will it be enough for them to think about how their race and gender shape who they are. Rather, they will need to understand their race and gender in the broader context of racist and sexist oppression, learning that social position shapes identity and behavior (always contextualized within a particular social position) and affects the social world (including individuals and institutions). Thus, we suggest that to capture transformative learning in the context of oppression and privilege, we need to pay attention to both objective and subjective reframing, changes that take place in the individual’s understanding of the social world and the individual’s self-conception.
Pedagogy for the Privileged
Embedded in this context of transformative learning, we turn to Curry-Stevens (2007) who outlines a process through which privileged students come to understand and come to terms with their own privileged social position. Curry-Stevens (2007) breaks the learning process into two processes: a confidence-shaking process and a confidence-building process. Each process includes multiple steps for a total of 10. The confidence-shaking process includes six steps, moving from building a (theoretical and empirical) awareness of oppression to understanding oneself as implicated in the oppression of others. The confidence-building process builds upon the confidence-shaking process with an additional four stages. To foment behavior change, “significant time needs to be devoted in the curriculum for both practicing new behaviors and for building action plans and commitments for new behaviors to occur outside the training room” (Curry-Stevens, 2007, p. 44). The confidence-building stages include (7) taking action, (8) planning for further action, (9) arranging for ongoing support, and (10) committing to one’s plan through a covenant or contract.
A strength of Curry-Stevens’s approach comes through its affinity with transformative learning theory more broadly. Curry-Stevens characterizes the transformation of privileged learners through five domains of change: spiritual, ideological, emotional, behavioral, and intellectual/cognitive (2007, p. 40). Thus, Curry-Stevens captures key features of Mezirow’s habits of mind while including both the objective (ideological) and the subjective (emotional, spiritual, and behavioral) components of critical reflection. At the same time, Curry-Stevens adds to these earlier distinctions and finely tunes them for the context of learning about one’s own privilege and relation to oppression.
Those of us attuned to issues of privilege and oppression may feel some resistance to a special pedagogy for privileged learners, asking, “Would we not better expend our energy learning how to engage and empower students suffering from systemic disadvantage, the members of marginalized and under-served populations?” We suggest that we not only need to take time to teach privileged students about their privilege—and the inseparable forms of oppression that sustain it—but we also need a nuanced, even delicate, means of doing so. As Curry-Stevens (2007) rightly notes, “privileged learners have specific needs that warrant their attention but they have the potential to change in fundamental ways” (p. 45). If we want to engage privileged learners in meaningful social change, then we need to teach them about their privilege, which is what Curry-Stevens offers with her pedagogy for the privileged.
Method and Analytical Approach
Participants in this research included 24 students enrolled in a course in civic engagement and global citizenship during the 2013–2014 or 2014–2015 academic years. This number represents half of the students enrolled in the course under consideration. Participants included only those students who completed the major assignments (critical reflections, a personal value proposition [PVP], and a personal learning plan [PLP]) and consented to participating (13 students from the first cohort and 11 from the second cohort). Eleven of the 24 students also completed pre- and posttests and participated in a focus group at the end of the semester in which they completed the course. Of the 24 students included in this study, 6 self-identified as male and none identified as international students. Participants’ programs of study were diverse and included international development, political science, child and family development, and biological sciences. Other details about participant demographics are suppressed due to the small sample size and concerns about participant confidentiality. However, all of the participants were completing a 4-year university undergraduate degree. Only 26% of the Canadian population have access to higher education (Statistics Canada, 2011). Therefore, we understand all of the participants to benefit from some level of privilege insofar as they are university students.
The course under consideration is offered as the introductory course for a new certificate program offered at a mid-sized Canadian university. To receive the certificate, students must complete two core courses (the introductory course under study as well as a capstone course), three restricted electives, and 120 hr of community engagement. We collected data through pre- and posttest, students’ course work, and focus groups administered at the end of the course. The pre- and posttest asked three questions about students’ understandings of relevant ideas and concepts. The questions were: What is community engagement?; What is engaged global citizenship?; and How does my identity shape, and become shaped by, these ideas? We asked these questions at the beginning and end of the term because changes in students’ responses could reflect both objective and subjective reframing. We also asked students to identify whether, and if so when and why, they thought their answers had changed. Students’ critical reflections, PVP, and PLP were also included as data. These submissions required students to draw connections between literature covering a range of course topics (such as citizenship, leadership, and community) and contemporary social, political, and economic challenges towards which they wanted to focus their practical and intellectual attention. These materials helped to expose students’ habits of mind. Focus groups are appropriate for exploring the ideas of a group (Gaskell, 2000). We held a focus group for each cohort to better understand their learning about core course ideas and their own privilege. Data collected through the focus group thus contributed to a deeper exploration of participants’ attitudes and opinions about their development through the introductory course for the certificate program.
The course explicitly pushes students to consider privilege, in part, by exploring the concept of intersectionality. Specifically, through student-led seminars and instructor-facilitated discussions, students engage with concepts such as intersectionality and power early in the course and are then given the opportunity to plan how their engagement opportunities will reflect and reinforce their learning. They do this by creating a PVP and a PLP. Students begin with an opportunity to learn about oppression and privilege from an objective perspective, followed by an opportunity through their PVP to reflect upon how privilege and oppression play out in their own lives. They are then asked to develop a PLP that includes community engagement opportunities and that reinforces their learning and reflection. In other words, they adopt a plan, actions, and a commitment to carry out those actions. This pedagogical process maps roughly onto Curry-Stevens’s model, which allows us to pose our research question about how and whether students experience transformation in relation to their understanding of privilege and oppression and in the context of the broader themes covered in the course. However, the course design does not capture Curry-Stevens’s division between confidence-shaking and confidence-building; it focuses predominately on the former. 3
To analyze the data, we used a thematic analytical approach outlined by Reid, Brief, and LeDrew (2009), which consists of four stages: descriptively code data, make connections between codes, test codes and connections, and search for alternative explanations. To descriptively code the data, we began by reading students’ pre- and posttests and course work and the focus group transcripts. We used codes to note students’ reference to key concepts including engagement, global citizenship, community, diversity, identity, and power. We also used descriptive codes to highlight instances where students explained a specific learning experience and where students made explicit reference to learning about their own privilege. Besides attending to students’ explicit reference to their learning, we interpreted the context in which students used key terms and ideas as well as passages where these concepts were under consideration without being mentioned explicitly. Ultimately, we tried to identify examples of students giving consideration (either theoretically or personally) to key concepts. For example, we identified students’ reflections on their own identity, their experiences of oppression or privilege, their understanding of community, and their role within community (whether global or local), as well as any connections they drew between social positions, power, and identity.
In our analysis, to make connections between the codes, we returned to our research questions and attempted to identify connections between changes in students’ understandings of concepts such as engagement, citizenship, or intersectionality (their philosophical habits of mind) and their self-conceptions (their psychological and epistemic habits of mind). So, we attend to how students identify themselves (e.g., as “White,” “western,” or “privileged”) and to how students connect their identity to their understanding of the world (e.g., a recognition that their social position limits their ability to understand other’s experiences). We also include moral–ethical habits of mind to try and capture not only changes in students’ understanding of engagement but also how they understand themselves in relation to engagement (e.g., we might note a difference between a duty to charity and a responsibility to fight for the rights of others). We thus attempted to test connections between students’ work and descriptions of their experience in the course and changes in their habits of mind. The University’s research ethics board reviewed and approved the study. Data are presented using gender-ambiguous, Anglo-American pseudonyms, and gender-neutral pronouns are used throughout. We selected pseudonyms to allow the reader to differentiate between students and to highlight individual students’ transformative learning experiences without revealing participants’ identities.
Findings: Students’ Experiences of Transformative Learning
Philosophical
Desirable changes in philosophical habits of mind include developing definitions and understandings of oppression and privilege and the intersectional nature of these social phenomenon and developing a conception of global citizenship and community engagement informed by these understandings. One student, Brook, exhibits some of these important changes. They seem to take away two important points from assigned readings, which suggest a developing critical, social justice orientation to global citizenship. First, towards the midpoint of the course, Brook acknowledges selfish motivations can have detrimental outcomes: When acts of global citizenship are performed for the sake of feeling good rather than doing good, this can be problematic because certain acts of service on a global level hurt and ignore the needs of a lot of people while the ‘global citizens’ think they are helping.
We see some important pieces of a social change model of engagement coming together in another student’s final reflection (presented in their PLP). Reflecting on the meaning and purpose of engagement, Bobby notes that their own charity work “does not even come close to working to alleviate the root cause of the issue.” Despite the student’s continued action, they are aware of and critical of a charity model of engagement. Later, in reflecting on power, Bobby acknowledges the importance of empowering marginalized communities. Here we see Bobby’s notion of engagement shifting from doing for to doing with.
Ideally, we want students to consider their personal relationship to these concepts as well and not simply leave them as abstract notions. Dakota demonstrates this capacity, offering clear reflection on concepts of oppression, intersectionality, privilege, and power throughout their written submissions. Through other comments (see below), we see that this student not only learned new definitions but also used these new ideas to critically reflect upon their own social position, how it has informed their beliefs, and the need to work against these influences in moving forward into engagement opportunities. In another example, Jessie’s work demonstrates reflection on concepts such as social change, collective resistance, and collective responsibility, which they integrate through reflection on psychological and moral–ethical habits of mind.
Psychological
As evidence of transformation in psychological habits of mind, we hoped to see students presenting conceptions of themselves as engaged global citizens aligned with a social justice framework of community engagement. An important psychological change comes, for example, when Jessie claims, part way through the course in their integrating reflection, that “from the global citizenship readings…, I learned that power to make change lies in myself: for if I realize that I have the agency and power to participate in social change, then I can make a difference.” This students’ observation is interesting because they subsequently seem to incorporate this new-found confidence into their engagement opportunity plans and learning goals laid out in their PLP. This seems significant in contrast to the pessimistic view that one person cannot make a difference. Recognizing yourself as an agent of change seems like a necessary early step in taking on a role as a global citizen or getting involved in your community.
On the other hand, given the social context, the students enrolled in this course will likely occupy relatively powerful social positions in relation to the populations with whom they will be working and will therefore have to grapple with self-imposing limitations to their agency. They will have to challenge their self-images as “saviors.” Doing so will require acknowledging their privilege, seeing some limitations inherent in their privilege (e.g., epistemic), and/or recognizing a moral–ethical imperative to limit their agency (e.g., respecting others’ autonomy). Jessie grapples with this by considering, near the beginning of the term, their advantages as “White” in procuring employment and their disadvantages as “female” in attaining a high-ranking position within their chosen field. Eventually, we would also want to see Jessie extending these considerations into a global context.
Finally, we would hope that both philosophical and psychological transformation result in reflective action informed by these changes. We find the best evidence for this in the work of Bobby who not only acknowledges their own privilege but seems to carefully reflect on how that affects their community engagement. This student points to their own privilege (i.e., access to educational opportunities) relatively early in the course. In the year-end reflection, the student applies this self-reflection to their role in community engagement. Describing the learning outcomes of one of their proposed engagement opportunities, Bobby claims, “I also believe that this experience will help to further develop my communications skills to be as approachable, effective and inclusive as possible.” In general, they concern themselves with being able to maintain the confidentiality—and dignity—of the people they will be working with. Although, we cannot see how this student will behave in the community, they seem to have seriously reflected both on their own social position and on how they want to behave during an engagement opportunity.
Epistemological
We found evidence of four distinct components of epistemic habits of mind relevant to a social justice framework of global citizenship and community engagement. First, we find a recognition of the limits of one’s knowledge about others. Jamie, who explicitly identifies as “White” and “middle class,” notes in their PVP that they were “raised to ignore differences” such as race, gender, age, and disability. In doing so, Jamie connects an awareness of their privilege to the epistemic limits that their sociocultural context has placed upon them.
Second, we find evidence that students were identifying a kind of solipsism related to privilege. We see an even more dramatic critical self-reflection in the work of Dakota. Early in the course, this student acknowledges what we might call the solipsism connected to existing within a privileged social position. “As a white, Canadian male it is often easy to forget that many are oppressed simply based on their race and gender.” (Dakota) Being White and male makes forgetting about gender-based and race-based oppression possible in ways not likely possible for women or racial minorities living in Canada. Further, this student attributes this insight into the course material on intersectionality, which suggests that this written reflection is part of a process of transformative learning. We see further evidence of this transformation in the student’s year-end reflection: The biggest change has been in my thinking of intersectionality and my own identity. Intersectionality studies how multiple different yet overlapping forces can oppress a single person…I simply assumed that everyone was treated equally. The most likely cause of this was my identity as a white, middle class male. This class has made me re-think about the powers in society and how they favor people similar to me. (Dakota)
A final important and related example of an epistemological shift involves a move toward recognizing the importance of learning from others, that is, seeing marginalized or oppressed individuals as legitimate sources of knowledge and learning. We see this in the work of Brook, who emphasizes, at the end of the course, their commitment to “seeking opportunities to learn from” the people they also aim to help.
Moral–Ethical
Ideal transformation with regard to moral–ethical habits of mind are ambiguous. On the one hand, respect for the autonomy of individuals remains important. However, this notion aligns closely with color-invisible, race-invisible, gender-invisible forms of liberalism that ignore important differences undergirding systems of oppression and privilege. Still, we should not let our attention to, and respect for, differences devolve into a position form which we would be unable or unwilling to pass judgment on any practice simply because it is not of our culture. Taking these tensions into consideration, we note a couple of examples where moral–ethical habits of mind seemed to become the object of explicit reflection.
For example, Casey adopts a moral–ethical justification while reflecting upon an important epistemological aspect of the transformative learning that takes place for privileged individuals, that is, learning that their experiences (i) are not universal and cannot necessarily be attributed to others and (ii) should not necessarily form the basis for judging others: Finally, as was pointed out in my personal value proposition questions, I tend to compare other people’s experiences with my own and evaluate them based on my own life. This shouldn’t be done for several reasons, the first being that my life isn’t some ideal that everyone should strive for and the second being that it creates hierarchies based on my own understanding of what someone’s life should look like…This type of thinking can lead to inflicting one’s own values onto someone else, which isn’t right. (Casey)
Jessie offers another explicit example of moral–ethical reflection and evidence for transformative learning. In their pretest, they espouse a wide-spread liberal sentiment: “everyone deserves equal, fair rights and opportunities.” (Jessie) In a later reflection, Jessie moves from a generic moral statement (we all deserve rights and opportunities) to thinking about the responsibility of agents in the context of oppressive structures. They acknowledge a “responsibility to recognize the working of oppression in society, and to work to change this oppression.” (Jessie)
Discussion: Integration Through Self-Reflection
We began with two questions: “What are students’ experiences of learning about their own privilege (and oppression) in preparation for carrying out engagement opportunities”? and “How does this learning experience frame students’ choices about their community engagement activities”? In response to the first question, we find reflections indicative of transformative learning experiences in several students’ writings, including pre- and posttests. These experiences seem to cut across philosophical, epistemic, psychological, and moral–ethical habits of mind. This written work (in combination with the class discussions we were unable to capture) constitutes the discourse in which students were able to test their emerging beliefs related to global citizenship, privilege, and oppression. As such, students’ reflective writing provided us with a window into their processes of reframing.
Above, we focus on the work of six students, which we suggest is exemplary of the kinds of reflection we would hope to see as a result of fostering transformative learning in relation to privilege and engagement. That is, we have been looking for, and have found, evidence that some students did develop a “better” frame for understanding and practicing global citizenship. For example, our analysis of Dakota’s work suggests that their habits of mind (Mezirow, 2012) have evolved and that they recognize the deep problems associated with dominant cultures, as articulated by O’Sullivan (1999). The development of Jamie’s epistemic habit of mind includes recognizing that their own sociocultural and economic context has guided their understanding of what constitutes knowledge (Mezirow, 2012) and that this habit of mind thus needs to be reconsidered. We could take these examples further, by highlighting, for example, Jamie’s explicit connection between their learning experiences and their personal transformation of moral–ethical habits, when they explain: “the seminar on intersectionality informed my personal values by causing me to recognize the benefits of my social position and the limitations of others. This has led me to believe that I have a duty to help those who cannot help themselves.” Here, Jamie is also suggesting that they have adopted the action-oriented understanding of global citizenship (Snider et al., 2013) that was advanced in the course.
Overall, what is important to keep in mind is the fact that the students from whose work we are drawing were not the only students to exhibit evidence of reflection on aspects of philosophical, epistemic, psychological, and moral–ethical habits of mind relevant to a social justice framework for global citizenship and community engagement. Rather, these students stand out because they integrated their reflection bringing together aspects of each of these four habits of mind. In this context, integration refers to the way in which students’ learning cut across and impacted these different habits of mind. Integration of this kind is important because it suggests that a student’s frame of reference is changing. Similarly, we saw several examples of subjective reframing, in which students questioned their own assumptions. Much like integration, subjective reframing seems more likely to lead to reflective action and, in this context, to students living out a social change–oriented approach to global citizenship.
The other interesting thing about these cases is what we do not see. Most importantly, in response to our second question, we see little evidence that students learning experiences were affecting their choices about their community engagement activities. We did however note that some students seemed to cache their decision about future course work in terms of their changing understandings of privilege and oppression and global citizenship.
Further, we are lacking evidence that these students passed through several of Curry-Stevens’s (2007) stages of learning about privilege. This could be because students in the course were already somewhat more inclined to recognize global and local social justice issues, given that they had intentionally registered for a course called “Engaged Global Citizenship.” We also found limited explicit examples of students relying on their seemingly transformative learning experiences in planning their engagement opportunities. The textual evidence suggests that students participated in the kinds of reflection necessary for transformative learning and changes in habits of mind. However, it remains unclear whether their choices of engagement opportunities really reflect their experience in the course. In Mezirow’s terms, we see discourse but not reflective action. This lack of reflective action makes it difficult to answer our second question as to how students’ learning impacts their choice of engagement activity.
This lack of reflective action also raises the question of when transformative learning is taking place. Ultimately, given Mezirow’s (2012) acknowledgement that the process of transformative learning may be delayed and/or nonlinear (as in the above example of a student learning about sexism), it may be too soon to tell whether or not students do actively transfer their shifting habits of mind into action. But we do have snapshots of student learning that very much appear to belong to incremental processes of transformative learning. Further, students’ descriptions of their developing understanding of global citizenship are promising in that they reflect the action orientation that our starting definition implies (Snider et al., 2013). We can be hopeful that transformative learning will come to fruition through reflective action in students’ engagement opportunities.
Conclusions: Critical Reflection and Planning for Action
The answers to our original questions are not straightforward. In response to the first question, our findings suggest that some students developed considerably more sophisticated understandings of oppression and privilege than others and also that a small group of students was able to ground this theoretical understanding in their personal experiences. Similarly, some students came to reflect more critically on key concepts, such as community, engagement, and global citizenship and on their own social positions and their roles as engaged global citizens. However, students’ reflective capacities seemed to vary considerably. We hoped to see more reflection on their privilege and their own contributions to oppressive structures and systems. However, taking Curry-Stevens’s stages into account, we find a lack of evidence of students’ reflecting on oppression as structural.
This lack of evidence might suggest a gap in the curriculum of the course under study, or as noted above, it might reflect a delay in students’ ability to internalize the learning they undertook. To address the first possibility (a gap in curriculum), we may want to place more emphasis on a structural analysis of oppression and, just as importantly, on helping students connect their own privilege to a structural analysis. Ideally, we want students to think about how and why unreflective, charity-focused engagement opportunities may not only fail to help but may contribute to structural injustices and other social harms.
To address the second possibility (students’ delayed learning), we propose a longitudinal study that not only looks at multiple cohorts but that also follows up with the students in their final semester of the program and again 2–5 years after completing the program. Evidence suggests that not all experiences that contribute to transformative learning, such as fostering students’ awareness of their privilege, will have a lasting effect on students (Kiely 2004). A longitudinal study would allow us more insight into what aspects of student learning persist and continue to affect their actions, as they not only complete their engagement opportunities but also engage with their communities after their time as students.
Interestingly, in response to the second question, we did not find a strong relationship between a student’s demonstration of critical reflection on privilege and engagement and their ability to take a more critically aware approach to an engagement opportunity they had designed. This gap also deserves attention. Thinking back to Mezirow’s model of transformative learning, we wonder whether, and to what extent, transformative learning has taken place until it is put into action. The apparent lack of connection between students’ reflections on their learning outcomes and planned engagements encourages us to put a greater focus on this connection in future iterations of the course. However, because we have yet to see how these students will behave in their planned engagement opportunities, this gap may resolve itself through students’ exposure to diverse community settings. Related, we are yet to see, through studying student reflections, what kind of disorienting dilemmas may arise during students’ engagement opportunities. Ideally, we want to prepare students before going out in the community to minimize the stress that can come with transformative learning. But it might be the case that some students need to experience the dissonance between their beliefs and their experiences in their engagement opportunities. Sometimes even the most meticulously planned classroom experience cannot prepare students for the “real world.” Again, this is an area that will benefit from further empirical study.
Future Development
These gaps raise practical pedagogical questions. For example, how can we increase student reflection on privilege and oppression and their interconnections? Here, Curry-Stevens’s pedagogy for the privileged is useful for constructing a more systematic learning experience. Following this model, the course content could lead students through stages of learning about oppression and privilege in general and then through their own experiences of oppression and privilege and finally through their own roles in maintaining these structures. Two added benefits may come from applying this approach. First, by providing students with an understanding of the systemic nature of oppression, they may better see the important difference between a charity and a social justice approach to community engagement or engaged citizenship. Second, because students gain an understanding of their own position in relation to systems of privilege and oppression, they may more tactfully approach the interpersonal relationships that comprise an engagement opportunity.
Ideally, we would also like to see students’ learning about oppression and privilege having a greater impact on their engagement opportunities. In other words, we would like to see students seeking out organizations or projects that seek structural social change, as opposed to more service-focused experiences. One suggestion that came from students during a focus group was to begin the process of having students develop their PLPs much earlier in the semester. Students felt that this might help them continually develop, critique, and rewrite their learning outcomes while giving them more time to research and possibly change their planned engagement opportunities. Besides accomplishing the goal of having students connect their classroom learning to their engagement opportunities, this would allow additional opportunities to consider whether, and if so how, planned engagement opportunities and associated learning outcomes change (or remain the same) as students engage with the key concepts in the course and reflect on their personal relationship to privilege, oppression, and intersectionality.
Overall, it seems clear that reflective activities were especially useful to students for building their capacity to integrate the key concepts, their social positions, and their roles as engaged citizens. Taking the time to reflect on and write about their own research and presentations from their peers contributed to students’ reflections on, and integration of, key concepts. Second, in a few cases, students explicitly stated that feedback from peers or the instructor on their PVPs had a clear impact on their PLPs and particularly on their ability to integrate key concepts into their proposed engagement opportunities or learning objectives.
The data suggest that some students enrolled in the course underwent transformative learning changes related to four habits of mind. This research reveals opportunities for pedagogical changes that may facilitate more transformative learning and also more opportunities for students to apply their learning to their engagement opportunities. Future research will allow for a longer view on students’ transformative learning experiences. In the meantime, we are pleased that students enrolled in the certificate program of which the course under study is a part are now better positioned to engage in the hard work of advancing social justice.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared the following potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Leah Levac teaches the introductory course for the Certificate in Civic Engagement and Global Citizenship. To guard against potential conflicts of interest, students were asked to participate by a third party and the research was not undertaken until after students completed the course.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.