Transformative Learning in Adulthood :: Adult Education Educate Essays

Transformative Learning in Adulthood A defining build of being human is that we produce to understand the meaning of our experience. For some, any uncritically assimilated explanation by an authority figure will suffice. But in contemporary societies we must learn to make our own interpretations rather than flake on the purposes, beliefs, judgments, and feelings of others. Facilitating such understandings is the cardinal goal of freehanded education. Transformative learning develops main(a) thinking. (Mezirow 1997, p. 5)Since first introduced by Jack Mezirow in 1978, the concept of transformative learning has been a topic of research and theory building in the field of adult education (Taylor 1998). Although Mezirow is considered to be the major developer of transformative learning theory, other perspectives about transformative learning--influenced by the work of Robert Boyd--are emerging. Following a discussion of transformative learning as conceptualized by Mezirow, this Dige st describes research and theory building by Robert Boyd and its influence on current perspectives of transformative learning. Some suggestions for fostering transformative learning conclude the Digest. Mezirow and Transformative LearningThe theory of transformative learning that has been developed by Mezirow during the past 2 decades has evolved into a all-around(prenominal) and complex description of how learners construe, validate, and reformulate the meaning of their experience (Cranton 1994, p. 22). Centrality of experience, critical locution, and cerebral discourse are three common themes in Mezirows theory (Taylor 1998), which is ground on psychoanalytic theory (Boyd and Myers 1988) and critical social theory (Scott 1997). For learners to pitch their meaning schemes (specific beliefs, attitudes, and emotional reactions), they must engage in critical reflection on their experiences, which in turn leads to a perspective transformation (Mezirow 1991, p. 167). vista transfo rmation is the process of becoming critically aware of how and why our assumptions have come to constrain the way we perceive, understand, and feel about our world ever-changing these complex body parts of habitual expectation to make possible a more inclusive, discriminating, and integration perspective and, finally, making choices or otherwise acting upon these new understandings (ibid.). persuasion transformation explains how the meaning structures that adults have acquired over a lifetime stick transformed. These meaning structures are frames of reference that are based on the aggregate of individuals cultural and contextual experiences and that influence how they behave and interpret events (Taylor 1998). An individuals meaning structure will influence how she chooses to vote or how she reacts to women who suffer physical abuse, for example.