Jack Mezirow's (1978, 1991, and 2008) transformative learning (TL) theory was developed with transforming society in mind. However, that intent has been overshadowed by a dominant focus on individual transformation and a rational cognitive approach to critically assessing assumptions as the path to transformation. We (the authors) wonder what…

This article explores the cognitive aspects of utopia in environmental and sustainability education. Utopia here is understood as the imaginary transformation of society, entailing a critique of society and its imaginary reconstruction aligned with the ideal of just and flourishing communities. To gain insight into the processes at play, I develop…

Education theorists have emphasized that transformative learning is not simply a matter of students gaining access to new knowledge and information, but instead centers upon personal transformation: it alters students' perspectives, interpretations, and responses. How should learning that brings about this sort of self-transformation be understood…

Research has demonstrated that many quality sport-based youth development programs promote life skill acquisition (e.g., leadership, self-control) with the ultimate goal of facilitating positive outcomes in youth participants' social and academic environments. Researchers call this "transfer of life skills" (i.e., the idea that physical,…

This article examines the psychoanalytic concepts of object-relations theorist Christopher Bollas, applying them to a view of the Bible as "transformational object." Emphasizing the connection between psychological process and religious experience, this article suggests that each person's innate ability to choose and use objects is a key…

Transformative learning has usually been defined as transformations of meaning perspectives, frames of reference, and habits of mind--as proposed initially by Jack Mezirow. However, several authors have found this definition too narrow and too cognitively oriented, and Mezirow has later emphasized that emotional and social conditions are also…

Expertise is extended by becoming immersed in cultural practices. We look at an example of mathematical expertise in which immersion in cognitive practices results in the transformation of expert performance.

The authors focus on the critical role of assessment within a flipped classroom environment where instruction is based on constructivist learning theory and where desired student outcomes are at the higher levels of Bloom's Taxonomy. While assessment is typically thought of in terms of providing summative measures of performance or achievement, it…

This paper presents a framework for critical reflection that teacher educators can employ to analyze prospective teachers' reflection and support their transformative learning. The author argues that teacher educators should not only pay attention to the cognitive processes of prospective teachers (how they reflect), but also the content of their…

In this article, I interrogate the changing forms that may be fundamental to transformative learning and how these are best chronicled and understood. Drawing on auto/biographical narrative research, I challenge the continuing primacy of a kind of overly disembodied, decontextualized cognition as the basis of transformation. Notions of epistemic…

Within the field of second language teacher education (SLTE), narrative has largely functioned as a vehicle for teacher inquiry, based on the assumption that such inquiry will ultimately bring about productive change in teachers and their teaching practices. Less attention has been paid to documenting what this change looks like or how engagement…

This article is explorative in its attempt to define vulnerability within transformative pedagogy by analysing excerpts from two "volatile conversations" on racism and xenophobia between a teacher and her grade nine class in a well-resourced Jewish school. The two conversations differed in regard to the teacher's use of vulnerability, even though…

The Teaching for Transformative Experiences in Science (TTES) model is designed to foster transformative experiences (e.g., experiences with science content involving the application of that content in ways that expand perception and value in everyday experience). This study presents a case study of a high school biology teacher learning to…