Abstract
One of the intriguing ways that Mezirow (2000, 2009) theorized transformative learning (TL) was to contrast it with acquisitional forms of learning. He conceptualized a continuum of various types of learning. At one end, there were two types of acquisition and on the other end two types of transformative change, one being a change in meaning scheme and the other more substantive change, a change in meaning perspective. The gist and importance of his argument was well summarized by Cranton and Kasl (2012) who noted that Mezirow’s (2000) continuum reflected a difference in both kinds and degrees of learning. As they noted, the distinction between learning which is additive in nature and that which is transformative is a difference in kind. Whereas a difference between a change in meaning scheme and meaning perspective is a difference in degree, the latter being what Mezirow (2000, 2009) conceptualized as TL. The important aspect of Cranton and Kasl’s (2012) clarification was that some learning may remain as strictly additive, which they described as acquiring “a new piece of technical knowledge that has no transformative characteristics” (p. 69). This conceptualization of differences in learning by type and degree has been a useful distinction for isolating TL as a phenomenon. As such, it has also informed the design of learning where deep shifts in consciousness are needed for the development of new capacities or other types of transformative outcomes.
The compelling question that derives from contrasting acquisitional and transformative types of learning is not whether a pedagogical or organizational intervention is or is not transformative but rather a more nuanced analysis of how constructing new technical knowledge and TL intersect. The conceptualization of kinds and degrees of learning is an especially useful heuristic tool for studies of professional practice. Whether the focus is developing new practitioners or changing professional practice of experienced practitioners, the work that learners undertake often requires engaging with new content knowledge and deep self-examination of their holistic consciousness, identity, and meaning construction. As we know, the personal work involved in this type of learning can be complex and daunting.
As the articles in this issue illustrate, conceptualizing the intersection of personal and professional development in practice-focused learning opens a wide array of research questions where learning is influenced by types of practices, contexts, and transformations. In this issue, all of the researchers address an overriding question of how learners in practice-focused settings are invited, guided, and prompted to explore new knowledge as well as their assumptions, beliefs, and experience. In fact, meaningful change in professional practice generally requires both types of learning but again the question of intersection is essential to understanding transformative change. As demonstrated by the articles in this issue, this type of inquiry can be approached from numerous theoretical frameworks.
In the article, “Caucusing Updated: Innovations to Build Belonging and Empowerment” Ann Curry-Stevens and Rayne Jarvis situate their study in the realm of TL and social justice pedagogy. As they argue, an important capacity for those in human service professions is the ability to understand one’s own social location and identities as the basis for effective practice with others different from oneself. This type of relational practice-based learning is tied to examining one’s life experience, self-understanding, social location, and how power and privilege work in social systems.
Yet as they articulate, pedagogies of social justice focused TL can have adverse effects. For example, those in marginalized groups may carry the burden of educating those in privileged groups, or learning may reinforce habits of othering rather than empathy development. Moreover, Curry-Stevens and Jarvis also argue that the literature on social justice pedagogies underestimates the amount of community building needed to meaningfully involve learners in the difficult and emotional work of engaging with one’s experience and assumptions as well as engaging in deep listening of others’ experiences.
In addition to this well-articulated TL and social justice learning focus, Curry-Stevens and Jarvis’ study examines the curricular activity from the frame of the educator’s intent and the student experience. As Engeström (2016) noted there is always a gap between the theoretical explanation guiding curricular activities and how learners act in response to them. Studying this gap, he argued, is a key resource for understanding the process of learning. Curry-Stevens and Jarvis explore this gap and find that as well as changes to implementation, learners undertaking TL with highly personalized and sensitive topics integral to their professional practice need substantive voice and control in how the learning happens.
Mona Sommer, Ellen Andvig, Ragnhild Riis, and Rob Bongaadt in their article “Becoming Relationally Spacious: Mental Health Care Students’ Experience with the Immunity to Change Workshop” similarly studied learners in a human services professional preparation program. Their study investigates the implementation of a workshop series within a higher education curriculum for mental health workers. The workshop is informed by Kegan’s (1982) theory of psychosocial development and more specifically the immunity to change framework (Kegan & Lahey, 2009). As the authors explain, the workshop experience is designed to engage students in examining their life experiences. Sommer and colleagues argue that students often unknowingly reenact past ways of interacting in relationships with clients and colleagues, which constrains the development of more effective professional practice.
In a careful phenomenological analysis of students’ experiences in the workshop, the researchers examine the transformation of meaning structures and specifically two nodes of meaning, balancing hope and fear and adopting an open stance. Their analysis richly captures the sense of ambivalence learners experience as they face the choice between staying where they are or embarking on an exploration that may lead to transformation. Sommer et al. artfully capture the process of what they call personal-professional development illustrating how professional practice is intricately tied to personal development. Moreover, they articulate theoretically and empirically a transformed personal-professional practice, which they identified as the capacity to create and hold a relational space with others. Their work is a fine example of answering Fenwick’s (2010) call for studies of professional learning that precisely define “learning what, exactly? Learning for what, because why?” (Italics in original, p. 80).
Whereas Curry-Stevens and Jarvis and Sommer et al. focus on rather discretely framed learning activities, Lufi Sari, Free De Becker, Alexis Joson, and Koen Lombaerts take a more expansive view in their study of a 1-year teaching experience for preservice teachers. In their article, “Pre-service Teachers’ Perspective Changes: A Transformative Learning Experience During Teaching Practice in Remote Areas,” they chronicle the experience of teaching in remote locations in the Republic of Indonesia. Their study provides a rich description of how a remote and deeply immersive experience fosters disorientations that prompted some participants to explore their personal and professional sense of self especially in relationship with students, parents, colleagues, and the community.
Sari and colleagues describe the kinds of disorientations preservice teachers experienced. They highlight the discrepancy between prior beliefs and the reality encountered. The choice of the word discrepancy is worthy of further consideration given that the preservice teachers opted to go to an unknown and remote space where they knew they would engage in new and unfamiliar experiences. Discrepancy suggests that preexisting assumptions and beliefs weren’t so much problematic as diffuse and underdeveloped. The preservice teachers couldn’t fully know what they would encounter but they opened themselves to the evocative nature of the immersive experience. Moreover, their purpose for being there, their teaching, was central to their exploration of the disorientation they experienced. Their role and developing professional practice very much shaped how they worked through disorientation and the degree of transformation realized.
The articles by Lyngstad and Adams et al. respectively take more of an organizational view of the professional-personal theme of TL, and both rely on need-based theories. Michael Lyngstad in his article “At Home with the Mavericks: Student and Teacher Perspectives of the Transformative Potential of Glasser’s Choice Theory at an Alternative Secondary School” explores how teacher professional practices informed by choice theory impact student TL. Glasser’s (1999) choice theory is a need based and motivational theory which helps individuals better understand needs (conscious and sub-conscious) and behaviors and how they construct one’s unique perception of reality. In this alternative school, teachers are taught to use choice theory to guide their interactional practices with students. Thus, Lyngstad explores an intriguing intersection of the educators practice of teaching content knowledge and their practice of developmental student support. Challenges of engaging in secondary content-based learning that the students experience elicit opportunities for TL when teachers emphasize principles of choice theory. Student learning of choice theory in turn opens up TL interactions with teachers.
As Lyngstad explains, the use of concepts from choice theory fosters student self-awareness, self-examination, and empathy for others. While these transformative outcomes are largely realized at the individual level, Lyngstad also describes how the practices affect the fabric of the school or school culture. He richly describes the immersive quality of shared practices associated with TL. While Lyngstad explains similarities between Mezirow’s theory and Glasser’s (1999) choice theory, there is value in further considering Glasser’s theory as a TL approach in its own right.
Where Lyngstad describes TL oriented teacher practices with secondary students, the interest of Curt Adams and colleagues is in conceptualizing how school leaders engage in transformative oriented conversations with those they lead. In the article “Transformative Leadership Conversation: Toward a Conceptualization and Theory of Action for Educational Leaders,” Curt Adams, Olajumoke Adigun, Ashlyn Fiegener, and Jentre Olsen focus on how transformative change can be fostered at the individual level in a way that will extend outward to change social structures of a school. A central concept in transformative leadership conversations, as Adams and colleagues explain, is transformative power, which is informed by self-determination theory (Ryan & Deci, 2000). Adams et al. define transformative power as the kinetic energy that resides in motivation. The purpose of transformative conversations is to connect leadership to the needs that underly autonomous motivations of those working in a school. As Adams et al. articulate, transformative conversations guide the leader to engage with others in a way that is supportive of their psychological needs. Thus, leadership practices that transform social reality begin in interactive dialogue where leader influence is grounded in transformative power, which is envisioned as creating a learning relationship.
Adams et al. provide a compelling contrast between transformative and social power noting that in traditional leadership theories influence is often conceptualized as social power which is more unidirectional and controlling. Interactional and dynamic practices of framing, questioning, and listening explained by Adams et al. are key conversational elements underlying transformative power. It is this contrast between transformative and social power which further illustrates what can go wrong in learning that is purely technical in focus. Some developing school leaders may feel more comfortable with the acquisitional learning of technical aspects about leadership and understand their influence as social power. As a result, their practice likely embraces role authority as the source of influence rather than engaging in the deeper and more personal work required to enact transformative power as a different kind of leadership practice. As illustrated in this and the other articles in this issue, it is questionable whether a content area like leadership or care practices of other helping professions can be learned without the personal self-examination characteristic of TL.
The articles in this issue show the subtleties and complexities of understanding TL in the context of professional practice. Though there are familiar concepts of meaning perspectives, disorientation, and reflection, there are also new angles and nuances that need to be further explored to better understand and explain transformative and contextually based professional practice learning. Based on the purpose or outcome of learning, practice-focused TL will vary in degree and be shaped by its intersection with other types of acquisitional learning specific to a profession.