Shadow work may result in increased awareness and emotional and behavioral changes that influence the quality of life in the adult student. Using a semi-clinical, semi-structured, qualitative interview with 20 adult learners, this study investigated the role of shadow work following Kegan and Lahey's (2009) Immunity to Change (ITC) process in…

The theory of perspective transformation was used as a framework for a study of volunteerism among older adults, examining whether volunteering in community organizations in late adulthood brings about transformation in meaning structures in later life development, and if and how it affects aging at both the individual and societal levels. Two…

Metaphysics is a necessary point of departure to build a comprehensive understanding of the nature of adult and adulthood at a deeper philosophical level. A group of philosophers representing the school of German Classical Idealism remain highly influential in building elaborate arguments on the nature of self and reality that may assist adult…

A study explored learners' understanding of their own changing perceptions as they study the theory and research of aging and track their development in personal journals. The writings of 280 graduate and undergraduate students in gerontology classes, aged 18-75, were analyzed for personal assessments of their own learning. Among the themes that…

A two-year ethnographic study of dialogic literary circles in Spain explored the learning experience of adults who participated in them. In a dialogic society, educational projects providing real opportunities for transformation and overcoming inequalities usually had a dialogic orientation and promoted instrumental learning as well as critical…

Teachers transform lives, and the ripple effect goes on for years. Three pertinent questions are asked in this paper: Where does this power come from? What is its source? and What makes teachers so special? Two aspects of these questions are the multiplicity of identities that coexist within each teacher and the passion inside teachers that…

The primary purpose of this paper is to illuminate how a school principal employed three identifiable leadership initiatives to support adult learning within the context of her school and to show how her own thinking about her leadership practices on behalf of teacher learning changed and developed over time. A discussion of current efforts to…

The impact of adult learning-within-relationship on transformative learning and social change agency was explored in a descriptive case study of the learning experiences of 20 adults who identified themselves as significantly transformed by their participation in a doctoral program. In-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted to identify…

A study followed for a year or more the internal experiences of learning and change of 41 adult basic education/English as a second language learners enrolled in these 3 programs: community college, family literacy site, and workplace site. It focused on learners' meanings as the starting point for exploration and used a developmental lens to…

Robert Kegan's constructive-development theory of adult growth postulates three different ways of knowing (instrumental, socializing, and self-authoring) and suggests that, although individuals develop differently, individual development can never be separated from culture. The potential of the constructive-development perspective on adult…

As part of a larger study (not discussed) ten educated Malaysian citizens were interviewed to find whether their rising political consciousness, over a ten year period (1988-1999), indicated that their transformation was influenced by their culture. The subjects were between 35-45 years old, married, with an average of four children. All were…

This symposium on adult learning and human resource development consists of three presentations. "Adult Learning Principles and Concepts in the Workplace: Implications for Training in HRD" (Margot B. Weinstein) reports on findings from interviews with restaurant employees who reported that training practices using adult learning…

Adjustment experiences of South Korean graduate students' wives living in Georgia were examined from a feminist viewpoint. The adaptive process, its cultural meaning, and related social ramifications, was hypothesized to be an example of transformative learning. These two questions guided the study: (1) how did South Korean students' wives adapt…