This article presents the author's response to Michael Newman's "Calling Transformative Learning into Question: Some Mutinous Thoughts". Transformative learning has arguably become one of the most generative and provocative ideas in adult learning. More than 30 years ago, Mezirow (1978) introduced this idea to the field of adult education. During…

This article concludes a volume on emotions and adult learning with a conversation about the book itself. In this article, the authors reflect on the ways in which the preceding articles contribute to a deeper understanding of the role of emotions in adult learning.

This article describes different ways of understanding emotions and their role in adult learning. The author suggests that people's understanding of emotions is shifting from one where they are viewed as an obstacle to reason and knowing to more holistic and integral ways of knowing one's self and the world. In this article, he provides a…

Emotions experienced as imaginative engagement are central to making meaning from experience. Entering into conscious dialogue with images provides a method of making sense of emotions in adult learning. (Contains 40 references.) (SK)

A holistic conception of transformative learning involves understanding of the self through spiritual, emotional, and mythological dimensions of experience, grounded in the idea of archetypes. (SK)

A narrative inquiry into the lives of nine environmental activists in nonprofit organizations depicted the role of learning in sustaining their commitment to and passion for the work. Resulting themes suggest they recognize their work as a calling or vocation. Transformative learning plays an integral role in sustaining commitment and passion.…

Emotion-laden images that arise within adult learning provide a symbolic language for helping teachers and learners understand and facilitate transformation at both the individual and group levels.

Emotional reactions to text are manifestations of learners' inner selves. Adult learners can engage in the process of meaning making by working with images and integrating them into their holistic beings. (SK)

Central to development of authenticity in teaching is self-understanding and self-awareness. Using a Jungian perspective, the author suggests that the imaginative dimensions of the self play a critical role in our journey and experience as teachers, and in developing self-awareness and authenticity in our teaching.

Summarizes four theoretical perspectives on transformative learning as consciousness raising, critical reflection, development, and individuation. (SK)

This symposium paper reviews the literature on adult students in higher education and offers a model of their collegiate experiences. The review is organized according to the following themes: adults' experiences in higher education, social and psychological concerns, the role of the classroom, adult cognition, the adult-world surroundings, and…

This guide is designed to help teachers plan and implement integrated, theme-based (ITB) instruction for adults. Chapter 1 provides an overview of integrated, thematic instruction. Chapter 2 discusses important assumptions about how adults learn. Chapter 3 provides a general discussion of differences among individuals in their approach to learning…

Our understanding of workplace learning is shaped by four dominant discourses that may be labeled the discourses of design, demand, development and desire. Within these different discourses, understanding of workplace learning is shaped and bounded by particular assumptions about the "self in context," which includes the organizational…