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Full-Text Articles in Education
Transformative Learning And The Ecological Crisis: Insights From The Tao Of Liberation, Mark Hathaway
Transformative Learning And The Ecological Crisis: Insights From The Tao Of Liberation, Mark Hathaway
Adult Education Research Conference
The complexity and scale of the ecological crisis poses unique challenges to transformative learning. To address these, The Tao of Liberation (Hathaway & Boff, 2009) offers insights to reconceptualize transformative learning from an ecological perspective, including new ways of framing learning goals, the nature of liberation, and the process of worldviews transformation. The Tao also provides analysis addressing some of the key psychological obstacles impeding transformative learning related to the ecological crisis. Finally, The Tao outlines four “paths to liberation” that suggest concrete processes that can foster integral transformative learning.
Catalysts For Transformative Learning In The Making Of Scientist- Environmentalists: A Consideration Of The Lives Of Aldo Leopold, Rachel Carson, And David Suzuki1, Pierre Walter
Adult Education Research Conference
This is a study of the role of transformative learning in the lives of three well-known scientist-environmentalists. It identifies catalysts for transformative learning in their life transitions from positivist-scientists to scientist-environmentalists. The paper concludes that transformative learning was not only an individual process, but also that each scientist helped provoke a collective process of transformative learning and social change.
Theological Education In Action: A Study Of Racial Perspective Change Among Participants In The Student Interracial Ministry Of Union Theological Seminary (1960-1968), Kirk A. Moll
Adult Education Research Conference
This qualitative research study investigated the role played by white theological seminary student participation in the Student Interracial Ministry (1960-1968) in the transformation of the participants’ racial perspectives. The central theoretical framework was transformative learning. The role of racism as a disorienting dilemma; interpersonal, affective, and spiritual/religious factors, and transformative learning across the lifespan were explored.
A Transformative Dance Through “Language Mountains” And “Blind Spots”: Park Educators Learn Responsiveness To Immigrant Newcomers, Elizabeth Lange, Peter Vogels, Zenobia Jamal
A Transformative Dance Through “Language Mountains” And “Blind Spots”: Park Educators Learn Responsiveness To Immigrant Newcomers, Elizabeth Lange, Peter Vogels, Zenobia Jamal
Adult Education Research Conference
This paper describes a project Learning Language, Learning the Land, created to enhance park accessibility and social belonging for immigrant newcomers by combining language learning and environmental literacy in a city park and provincial park setting. This paper reports on the dialectics of transformative learning for parks staff as they discovered the inappropriateness of didactic methods and how effective adult learning emerges from rapport, educational responsiveness and ethnocultural knowledge. Second, through informal learning, staff became allies in these traditionally white, middle class spaces, helping build a sense of place and social belonging.
Methodological Challenges In Studying Transformative Learning, Seon Joo Kim, Sharan B. Merriam
Methodological Challenges In Studying Transformative Learning, Seon Joo Kim, Sharan B. Merriam
Adult Education Research Conference
First discussed are philosophical perspectives in relation to the research design and methodology for studying transformative learning. Second, several promising research designs for studying this phenomenon are reviewed including narrative analysis, arts-based research, critical approaches, and action research. Finally, we conclude with a discussion of methodological challenges at this point in the evolution of the knowledge base of transformative learning.
Transformative Professional Development In Unlikely Places: Twitter As A Virtual Learning Community, Kathleen P. King
Transformative Professional Development In Unlikely Places: Twitter As A Virtual Learning Community, Kathleen P. King
Adult Education Research Conference
This case study reveals new dimensions of transformative learning occurring through informal learning opportunities. The research results demonstrate that the individual’s learning spans understanding, networking, professional identity development, and transformative learning. Specifically, virtual online communities facilitated through social media provide professional networks and social relationships beyond the scope of the individual’s usual interactions and experience. Discussion and recommendations include using social media and virtual communities as instructional strategies for graduate studies and continued learning beyond formal education. The educational significance includes facilitating transformative learning in informal learning contexts, and using social media and online communities for professional learning.
Transformative Learning With Women: A Critical Review Proposing Linkages For The Personal And Political Spheres*, Catherine J. Irving, Leona M. English
Transformative Learning With Women: A Critical Review Proposing Linkages For The Personal And Political Spheres*, Catherine J. Irving, Leona M. English
Adult Education Research Conference
Theoretical developments in the field of transformative learning have progressed significantly over the past two decades, yet little attention has been paid to women’s experiences of transformative learning and to the issues of race, class and gender in this learning. We explore the apparent hesitation at both the personal and political ends of the transformative learning spectrum, and help to create alliances and strengthen the theory.
A Transformative Learning Perspective On Workplace Safety, R. Bruce Dodge
A Transformative Learning Perspective On Workplace Safety, R. Bruce Dodge
Adult Education Research Conference
Workplace injuries and illness are a problem of epidemic proportion yet safe workplaces can be created. Using the lens of transformative learning this case study, informed by ethnography, examined the experience of a long term seniors’ living facility which had dramatically reduced injury rates and costs. The study sought to understand the apparent perspective transformation of senior leaders and how that change impacted the organization. Disorienting dilemmas, discourse and critical reflection were seen as contributing to a new frame of reference which guided the actions of leaders.