Transformative Education through International Service-Learning

Realising an ethical ecology of learning

Philip Bamber, Philip M Bamber

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317410768
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Transformative learning is a compelling approach to learning that is becoming increasingly popular in a diverse range of educational settings and encounters. This book reconceptualises transformative learning through an investigation of the learning process and outcomes of International Service-Learning (ISL), a pedagogical approach that blends student learning with community engagement overseas and the development of a more just society. Drawing upon key philosophers and theorists, Bamber offers an integrated, multi-dimensional approach, linking transformative learning to the development of the authentic self, and analysing the aesthetic, moral and relational dimensions of ISL in an increasingly globalized world. Chapters explore rich empirical data to provide a timely framework and ethical ecology of transformative learning, detailing the challenges facing the approach, and how it can be embedded at the levels of practice, institutional ethos and partnership.

Transformative Learning through International Service-Learning will appeal to academics, researchers, teachers, instructors and leaders in the fields of service-learning, international education, character education and in adult learning and education. It will also be of interest to practitioners working in international education, development education, volunteering, service-learning and community engagement.

Part I

Transformative learning

1 Towards an integrative model of transformative learning

Introduction

. . . it changed everything . . . I came back and completely shifted the job that I wanted to do . . . now I work in the third sector for a charity, and I work within mental health. Part of my job is challenging the preconceptions people have of those with severe mental health problems, and that all came about really because of my ISL experience.

(Katie, ISL participant in 2003 in India)

The idea of transformation is compelling, evoking images of wonder such as a butterfly emerging from a cocoon. It alludes to cataclysmic and dramatic change that is observable through a sudden and significant change in appearance or character. The word and the way it is used has connotations of irreversible change; the crossing of a threshold from which there is no going back. Narratives of personal transformation are seductive and proliferate in Western society: a millionaire works on a placement in a deprived community and begins to reflect on their own values as they learn to associate with the poor; a mother reassesses her role in the family through engagement with a lifelong learning course; an unemployed young man becomes radicalised through the Internet and enlists to fight for extremist religious views; an unruly teenager completes an outdoor residential ‘boot camp’ and subsequently re-engages with their study at school; the soldier physically debilitated and mentally traumatised by the horrors of war adapts to life after conflict.

Educators are fascinated by such learning that is ‘deep’, ‘fundamental’ or ‘profound’, raising a number of questions, addressed in this book, regarding what is meant by ‘transformation’ with respect to learning. These questions include; What is transformed through transformative learning and how does this relate to the way we know, act or feel in the world? How can the conditions for transformation be created? Can transformation occur unintentionally or does it require engagement with an intentional act of learning? Are particular events experienced as being transformative or is it that change is gradual and takes place over time? In what ways do we resist transformation or are propelled towards it? In what ways is learning experienced as restorative and transformative, progressive and regressive? What are the ethics of seeking to transform others? Can you transform a life that is your own? In focusing upon that which is transformative do we discredit other aspects of learning?

This chapter seeks to highlight the transformative dimension of learning. It argues that learning is fundamentally holistic and relational and has a distinct moral dimension. It begins by suggesting that Jack Mezirow’s conceptualisation of transformative learning must be expanded upon to account for the interaction and balance between epistemological and ontological aspects of learning. This provides the basis, pursued in this book, for an integrated, multi-dimensional approach to learning that has characteristics which are cognitive (concerned with thinking), emotional, affective (concerned with values and feelings), conative (concerned with striving, action and doing) and relational. This conception of learning can be described as transformative not only because it is concerned with how individuals or groups are changed in appearance from one form or character to another but because it also focuses attention upon learning processes that are experienced across these different forms. These ideas are explicated here in relation to established theories of learning, such as constructivism, situated cognition, critical pedagogy and experiential learning.

The transformative dimension of learning

Although the process of learning can be distinguished from the tangible entity of ‘learning’ itself, understood as a body of knowledge, it is often suggested that learning involves the acquisition or internalisation of knowledge or skills. This resonates with descriptions of ‘surface’ learning as involving the acquisition of ‘information’, memorisation or elaboration of existing knowledge and simply adding to ‘what we know’. Jack Mezirow’s model of transformative learning (1991, 2000) is instead concerned with changing ‘how we know’ as we reconfigure previously held assumptions or beliefs that frame how we make sense of experience.

For Mezirow, the transformative dimension of learning is related to meaning: in particular, how meaning ‘is construed, validated and reformulated’ (1991: xii). His theory of learning, building upon and adapting Habermas’s theory of communicative action (1981), interrogates the ways we interpret or make meaning of our experiences:

To make meaning means to make sense of an experience; we make an interpretation of it. When we subsequently use this interpretation to guide decision making or action, then making meaning becomes learning.

(Mezirow, 1990: 1)

Learning occurs, then, as we use a meaning that we have already made to guide the way we think, act or feel about what we are currently experiencing. Mezirow distinguishes the meaning-making of our everyday lives from meaning-making in transformative learning:

Normally when we learn something we attribute an old meaning to a new experience. . . . In transformative learning we reinterpret an old experience (or a new one) from a new set of expectations.

(Mezirow, 1991: 11)

This approach to adult learning contrasts its potentially transformative nature with the formative, socialising and acculturating process of learning in childhood. Mezirow predicates his theory of transformational learning on the assumption that most adults are unaware of the origin of their worldview, or lens through which they see, and the reasons behind or justification upon which they base their beliefs, values and actions. The challenge of becoming aware of our worldview can be related to seeing a windscreen that we are accustomed to looking through. Mezirow draws upon the analogy of the Myth of Sisyphus, the Greek king who repeatedly pushed a huge boulder up a hill, only to watch it each time roll back down, to argue that in our adult life we are mostly ‘caught in our own history and reliving it’ (Mezirow, 1978: 101). Our underlying values, assumptions and beliefs are often uncritically absorbed in childhood through family, school, community and culture. These influence the way we see the world and make meaning of the world as adults and play a central role in our personal development and growth. It is through ‘perspective transformation’ (Mezirow, 1991: 14) that we become aware of how our presuppositions and assumptions constrain our understanding of the world. This is redolent of Bateson’s Learning II and Learning III (1973), Argyris and Schön’s double loop learning (1978) and Freire’s notion of conscientisation (1970).

Mezirow suggests that our ways of knowing, feeling and believing, which are often uncritically assimilated, provide the frames of reference through which we make meaning and filter experience. Frames of reference (or meaning perspectives) consist of both habits of mind and points of view (Mezirow, 1991, 2000). The former are broad, generalised, orienting predispositions which selectively delimit perception, cognition and feelings by predisposing our intentions, expectations and purposes. The phrase ‘habits of mind’ alludes to mental drivers that operate below the level of ordinary consciousness and are conditioned and unintended. According to Mezirow, habits of mind are expressed as points of view which comprise clusters of meaning schemes or ‘sets of immediate specific expectations, beliefs, feelings, attitudes and judgements’ (Mezirow, 2000: 18) that accompany and are articulated within an interpretation. For example, an individual’s point of view that they are critical of those fraudulently claiming unemployment benefits is related to an associated habit of mind such as a strong work ethic. Mezirow argued that ‘you can change points of view by trying on another’s point of view’ (2000: 21) but one cannot try on someone else’s habit of mind. For example, we can ‘try on a point of view’ of a subsistence farmer by experiencing a day in their life yet their associated habits of mind are not immediately accessible or simply acquired.

The goals that transformative learning sets itself are both daunting and inspiring. Dirkx argues transformative learning represents ‘a heroic struggle to wrest consciousness and knowledge from the forces of unconsciousness and ignorance’ (1997: 79). This presents one side of the claim that transformative learning demands learners to ‘think for a change’ by surfacing, interrogating and overhauling unquestioned assumptions about the world in a process where reason and logic overcome instinct, ignorance and irrationality. The result of the transformative process, and indicator of the relationship between transformation and authenticity, is that students begin to act upon their own ‘purposes, values, feelings and meanings’ (Mezirow, 2000: 8) as opposed to ones they have uncritically assimilated from others.

This account is consistent with a constructivist view in that it is concerned with how we make sense of our experience through bringing our past experiences to bear. Knowledge emerges from interpretations and experiences that lead to new interpretations and experiences. Mezirow’s theory reifies rational, cognitive reasoning and individual transformation:

Transformative learning is understood as a uniquely adult form of metacognitive reasoning. Reasoning is the process of advancing and assessing reasons, especially those that provide arguments supporting beliefs resulting in decisions to act. Beliefs are justified when they are based on good reasons.

(Mezirow, 2003: 58)

Although Mezirow notes that frames of reference have cognitive, affective and conative dimensions (2000: 16), he argues that it is through critical reflection and dialectical discourse (Mezirow, 2003) that our assumptions can be exposed and overturned and our meaning perspectives become ‘more inclusive, discriminating, reflective, open and emotionally able to change’ (Mezirow, 2009: 22). Unlike King and Kitchener’s seven-stage model of developing reflective judgement (1990), Mezirow’s theory only implicitly acknowledges the difficulties learners face in developing reflexivity.

The continuous development of more integrated meaning perspectives suggests a rationalisation of society, leading to claims that Mezirow’s model is underpinned with a Western cultural bias (Kiely, 2005) that reifies the reflective tradition. Learners do not move inexorably towards an end state of transformed perspective simply by undertaking further experiences. Moreover, emancipatory values are not inherent in any process of learning. Nevertheless, educative practices are instrumental and cannot be seen as value free. Education seeks to lead students towards certain truths. Mezirow’s work fails to problematise the nature of power in emancipatory discourse itself, for instance by asking what right do instructors have to promote transformative learning? Dramatic changes in orientation (or perspective transformation) may be brought about by cultural change and brainwashing, coercion and indoctrination, as illustrated by the young man who becomes radicalised by extremist religious views. In closing down the space for critical dialogue where ideas can be contested, meaning perspectives can become impenetrable and impervious to change.

Mezirow’s theory presents only one orientation towards education, understood as a course of learning which is transformative. Taylor (2009) identifies two broad theoretical frameworks towards transformative learning that comprise a collection of orientations, namely an emphasis on personal transformation and growth where the unit of analysis is primarily individual (Daloz, Dirkx, Kegan, Cranton, Mezirow, Yorks and Kasl), and a concern for transformative learning that fosters social change as well as personal transformation (Freire, Tisdell). The former group is itself diverse: for example, viewing transformation as a developmental approach (Parks-Daloz, 1999) and also linking learning to spirituality (Dirkx, 2001; Tolliver and Tisdell, 2006). In the latter group, critical reflection is equated with ideology critique whereby learners develop an awareness of power and greater agency (political consciousness) to transform society and their own reality.

Critical, cultural perspectives on education

. . . it’s that clash of cultures and it was like the first time I was like ‘wow’ people think differently to me and my view of the world isn’t necessarily the whole complete view.

(Carol, ISL participant in 2007 in Uganda)

Freire’s work on the education of literacy with resource-poor communities in Brazil led him to reject mechanistic, technocratic and instrumental philosophies of education. A progressive educator, he labelled these oppressive forms as ‘banking’ education that assume ‘a dichotomy between man and the world’ (Freire, 1970: 62) through which those who consider themselves knowledgeable deposit knowledge with learners as they passively listen to and accept facts.

The concept of ‘conscientisation’, defined as ‘the deepening of the attitude of awareness characteristic of all emergence’ (Freire, 1970: 90), is central to Freire’s emanicipatory philosophy and has been equated with Mezirow’s notion of perspective transformation (Collard and Law, 1989). It occurs as individuals move from a limited awareness of self and societal structures (naive transitivity) to a critical and historical problematisation of society and one’s relation to it. They are seen to ‘emerge from their submersion and acquire the ability to intervene in reality as it is unveiled’ (Freire, 1970: 90). A deepened attitude of awareness is demonstrated as individuals begin to perceive social, political and economic contradictions and develop a critical awareness that enables them to begin to take action against oppressive elements that shape their lives. Through dialogue and problem-posing, learners begin to see their world, their place in it and their ability to transform it in new ways. Through conscientisation learners no longer remain marginalised. These ideas are also evoked in Greene’s concept of ‘wide awakeness’, whereby teaching is an empowering process as learners gain a heightened sense of agency ‘to pursue their freedom and perhaps, transform to some degree their lived worlds’ (Greene, 1995: 48).

Critical consciousness is ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Frontmatter
• Half Title page
• Routledge Research in International and Comparative Education
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• Part I Transformative learning
• 1 Towards an integrative model of transformative learning
• 2 The knowing, being and doing of transformation
• 3 The centrality of authenticity to transformative learning
• Part II International Service-Learning
• 4 Key concepts and practices in International Service-Learning
• 5 Investigating the student experience of International Service-Learning
• Part III Transformative learning as the process of becoming authentic
• 6 Authenticity as selfhood Becoming oneself [integrity]
• 7 Authenticity as reciprocity Becoming persons-in-relation [recognition]
• 8 Authenticity as worldliness Becoming other-wise [cosmopolitanism]
• Part IV Realising an ethical ecology of transformative learning
• 9 Realising an ethical ecology of transformative learning
• Appendix
• Index