Abstract
Scholars of transformative learning (TL) recognize that it reflects a kind and degree of change distinct from other types of learning (Cranton & Kasl, 2012). To refer to TL in this way, as some single entity or phenomenon, is a useful form of abstraction common across fields of inquiry. For example, the concept of the self can be understood as an entity, as different phenomena across disciplinary fields (e.g., sociology vs. psychology), and differently within a field across distinct theories (e.g., Tennant, 2012). There is utility in thinking about TL as a phenomenon when we are referring to it as a broad field of inquiry or in terms of metatheory (Hoggan, 2016; Hoggan & Higgins, 2023). While the conceptualization of the singular serves one type of purpose, we also recognize TL as phenomena, the plural within the singular. As many scholars have described, there are varying theories of TL that differ in terms of philosophical orientation, concepts, and explanation (e.g., Gunnlaugson, 2008; Nicolaides et al., 2022; Taylor & Snyder, 2012). Moreover, theories vary in level of abstraction from those that are grand to those that are more mid-range or micro (Kislov et al., 2019). Theories also vary in degree of empirical evidence for key concepts though this point of differentiation often gets less attention in the TL literature.
Classifying TL research in terms of metatheoretical and theoretical frames is an essential task in building the body of knowledge (Gunnlaugson, 2008; Hoggan & Higgins, 2023). There are, of course, many ways to group and sort the TL literature. The articles in this issue represent an eclectic assortment of professional fields, teacher education, college student development, group coaching, nursing, and songwriting. Another is a rich philosophical and conceptual inquiry. Collectively they represent the interdisciplinary nature of TL and illustrate the utility of various ways of framing TL research. I suggest that it is also helpful to situate them contextually and within what might be called a problem-based approach. One article addresses a fundamental problem of how to conceptualize self and society in TL research. Two deal with problems of learning in formal intentional education settings. Others address challenges of learning and development from a lifespan perspective including a major transition, responding to crisis as a type of continuous professional learning, and the developmental and affective benefits of an artistic craft. While TL the singular is common across these studies, TL the plural is contextually situated reminding us to attend to the way TL is defined in a theoretical framework, and the specific aims, challenges, and problems of adult learning uniquely revealed by TL studied as phenomena.
Enubi Sim and Aliki Nicolaides examine a classic philosophical problem in adult learning of how the self and society are conceptualized (Scott et al., 2020). In their article “Slow-looking at Transformative Learning through the Lens of Enactivism,” they explain how enactivism overcomes limitations of other educational philosophical orientations and theories that tend to create separate views of self and other. As they explain, enactivism offers a more holistic conceptualization of humans and all beings as connected in open, fluid, and emergent systems. Sim and Nicolaides use principles of enactivism to interrogate TL and illustrate how ideas of affectivity and relational ontology are existing themes in the literature. By drawing connections between enactivism and TL, they emphasize conceptualizations of emotions, feelings, empathy, and intersubjectivity that have moved understanding of TL well beyond the initial ideas of Mezirow (1991). They illustrate the meaning of relational ontology by reviewing key concepts in transformative sustainability education and other research areas in TL. That is, they see constituent elements of enactivism in the TL literature, identify a need for greater exploration of “enactive transformative learning dynamics,” and describe a theoretical model for future inquiry. Their work introduces an innovative philosophical basis for the study of TL that extends from and expands prior TL research. They present a new philosophical and theoretical framework where self and society are integrally interconnected as a unit of analysis.
In an interesting study grounded in Freire’s (1974) three phases of consciousness, Christina Santamaria Graff and Melissa Ballesteros-Benavidea demonstrate how a well-specified theoretical model of transformation helps deepen understanding of a specific type of learning challenge in preprofessional learning. In their article “Movement Toward Critical Consciousness and Humility through Family as Faculty (FAF) Approaches,” they examined the learning of undergraduate pre-service special education teachers related to educational practices for partnering with family members of children with disabilities. Their study is grounded in the recognition that most pre-service students hold dominant-culture assumptions about disability as a deficit. As Santamaria Graff and Ballesteros-Benavidea explain, these assumptions make it difficult for pre-service teachers to develop critical practices for disrupting marginalizing systems in schools. TL is theorized as movement along Freire’s levels of consciousness, and they carefully define elements of learning for uncovering implicit biases including self-reflection on one’s social positionality, humility as an educator disposition, and understanding one’s agentic power to disrupt problematic practices with children with disabilities and their family members. While transformation within the scope of 16-week semester class is limited, the study details shifts in knowing and being related to a specific kind of practice at each of level of consciousness. Their TL theoretical framework elucidates a specific learning challenge common in preprofessional education. It is a study that theorizes and examines how students learn to work with children with disabilities and their family members and presents a theoretically rich explanation of learning. Their findings have implications for the design of transformative preprofessional education targeting socialized assumptions that inhibit effective practice.
“From ‘Confusion’ and ‘Fear’ to ‘Broadened Horizons.’ Students’ Transformative Experiences in Two Higher Education Contexts: Argentina and Sweden” by Lotta Bergman and Frida Hessel, a TL theoretical framework grounded in Mezirow (1991) is used to find new insights in first-year college students’ experience, an area of scholarship with a vast literature. They study the problem of a developmental transition—a common challenge of lifelong learning. Bergman and Hessel’s work weaves in both psychological and sociological dimensions of the students’ experiences. Transformations included growing in self-confidence, using knowledge as a tool for expressing oneself, and changing socio-political perspectives. A compelling dimension of their analysis explains transformations regarding how students understood themselves as learners. Their TL theoretical framing produced a holistic description of learning as movement toward authenticity, self-expression, identity, and social positionality. In addition to the study’s connection to research on challenges for first-year college students, their work connects with other TL research that examines learning as a form of coping with life transitions.
The article “Transformative Learning through Group Coaching” by Björn Peters and Michael Göhlich is a quantitative outcome-focused study that examines the common problem of demonstrating that an intentional learning program is effective. While the context is group coaching with master’s students, the issue explored is common to many types of TL curricular studies. Grounded in a theoretical framework combining ego development (Loevinger, 1976) and TL broadly conceptualized, they used an evaluative model focused on reactions, learning, and intention to transfer. Peters and Göhlich found strong support that group coaching fostered levels of criticality and general transformative outcomes of re-evaluation of self-concept beliefs, worldviews, and other deeply held beliefs. The authors adapted Cox’s (2021) transformative outcomes and processes scale and the study contributes to a growing body of literature on the assessment of transformative learning (Acheson & Dirkx, 2021).
In the article “COVID-19 and Collective Transformation: Changes in Online Nursing Faculty Pedagogical Practices” by Colette Christoffers, Sara Bano, and Melissa Gorz, TL fostered changes nursing faculty teaching online made in response to the pandemic. Like Peters and Göhlich, these authors also used an outcomes framework which in this case revealed transformations in teaching practices. Christoffers et al. examined a problem of learning in response to an unexpected life event reflective of studies of crisis in the TL literature (Eschenbacher & Fleming, 2021). Key findings were that the faculty responded with greater collaboration suggesting a collective response to the pandemic as a disorienting dilemma. Moreover, the online faculty created new practices that transformed the role of compassion in their teaching. Situated in nursing preprofessional education and faculty development, this TL study examines a type of problem in continuous professional learning when external forces require urgent and substantive changes in practice.
The article by Laura Montanari titled “Songs and Songwriting as Transformative Learning Experiences: Three Singer-Songwriters Reflect on Their ‘Soul Work’” examines how a well-developed artistic craft facilitates TL. Centering TL as change in the psyche (Dirkx, 2012) and aligned with the arts-based tradition of TL, this study found that singer-songwriters had a self-directed approach to using songwriting to transport themselves to emotional states, both their own and others in a universal sense. Songs fostered understanding of unsettling feelings by reckoning with them in a creative manner that released emotional burdens. There was an educative quality to embodied and spiritual learning about emotion in a self-nurturing manner. Thus, this study illustrates how song and songwriting fostered TL as an autoanalysis and self-development practice that resulted in emotional development.
Extending from the premise of TL as a distinct type of learning, the articles in this issue illustrate (a) challenges in specific kinds of TL tasks in formal and informal/lifelong contexts, (b) strategies for building empirical evidence of special kinds of TL outcomes, and (c) expanding philosophical and conceptual frameworks for advancing new TL models. Situating TL research means appreciating it as interdisciplinary, context-bound, and, importantly, aimed at solving problems of learning that require a special kind and degree of transformation (Cranton & Kasl, 2012). Highlighting the problems that TL researchers seek to address also encourages us to consider next steps in research. There is a need for research that analyzes and compares more than one TL theory or explanatory framework of learning phenomena characterized by deep and substantive change.