In this paper, I explore the ways that educators can nurture transformative learning for adult students by engaging emotions, particularly shame. I discuss how shame mitigates adult student experiences, successes, and failures in higher education, and how a relational pedagogy of vulnerability can support adult learners. This approach not only…

The University Without Walls experiment on the University of Massachusetts, Amherst campus, began in 1971. The central animating concepts of the original experiment include the value of knowledge that is learned both within and without 'the walls' of the university. These various knowledge sources are integrated into the student's individualized…

Adult learners can have well-established 'ways of knowing', so a process of transformation represents learning that challenges them to discover new ways of thinking. Transformative learning is thus a frame for the practice of adult educators. The affordances of technologies can be exploited to facilitate transformative learning in adult learning…

Critical theory and transformative learning are two seminal theories that have incited a deluge of literature, fueled many discussions, and triggered much debate. Their relevance is enduring, and they are undeniably a great asset to the scholarship of adult education, but the two theories are far from fully developed or explored. Our purpose in…

The Department of Aging and Geriatric Research at the University of Florida College of Medicine has established online education programs to provide healthcare professionals with advanced training in the field of gerontology to establish proficiency in providing quality care to older individuals. A major barrier to creating our online education…

Ostensibly, the orientation towards learning outcomes in adult English language and literacy delivery ensures that the focus is on standardised skill development and knowledge acquisition of students. Such measureable development is seen as foundational to broader employability skills and job readiness. It is an agenda however which ignores the…

This paper examines an account of a practitioner-initiated transformation of workplace-based social relationship within a grassroots adult education institution. This tripartite relationship among adult students, staff and teachers, abbreviated as AST, is a major driving force for activities and missionary functioning of the XinZhuang Community…

This paper traces the evolution of Jack Mezirow's transformative learning theory and its conceptualisation. It discusses the three major influences, namely Thomas Khun's philosophical conception of paradigm, Freire's conception of conscientisation and consciousness growth, and Habermas' domains of learning and the discussion of…

Arts-based adult education has been embraced by a growing number of adult educators. These educators have explored its potential in the workplace, in the community and in academia. This article contributes to this work by exploring the Spoken Word, an art form located within the genre of poetry, and its potential as a tool of arts-based adult…

This article shares contributions from a moderated e-forum in 2007 that explored the transformative potential of arts in learning and social change. It draws on examples of poetry, creative writing, and experiences of innovative practice shared through these conversations by adult educators in contexts as diverse as Africa, Asia, Europe, North…

This paper contextualizes and analyzes a study of an ongoing series of visual arts workshops for women, commissioned from the Centre for Continuing Studies, Edinburgh College of Art, by clients in Dubai. The focus of workshops was on women from the Gulf taking "leadership" courses in Dundee, but they were also vehicles for Gulf women to…

This article presents the findings of a qualitative study on the "Bang' jomariek," a women's group in West Reru in Western Kenya who engage in the production of indigenous arts and crafts (pots, baskets, and architecture) to generate income and explore politics, medicine, and other matters that affect them and their community. The women…

This article is based on two phases of a five year arts-informed study that involved 24 women who immigrated to Maritime Canada as adults and who were all teachers in their countries of origin. In groups of approximately six, research participants gathered together in workshops held in two teacher training institutions in two Maritime Provinces…

This article explores Scharmer's account of generative dialogue, which followed from Bohmian dialogue in the 1980s and Isaacs' research with the MIT Dialogue Project in the early 1990s. It presents the author's view that generative dialogue offers a useful theoretical framework and effective means for facilitating transformative learning processes…