As pedagogy experts, teacher educators should lead the charge for improved teaching and learning, but are under-utilized pedagogy resources in liberal arts universities. In this paper, the collaborators, one a teacher education assistant professor and the other an associate professor of art history, identify critical friendship group approaches…

As educators and lifelong learners, we were drawn together by the question: How have we fostered our own capacity for agency, self-efficacy and risk-taking in the research practices we utilize? This paper reveals a connectivity and enabling thread that has enriched our experiences within and across our disciplinary areas. In particular this paper…

This article investigates three teacher learners' service learning experiences, in order to explore the extent to which approaches to service learning can lead to legitimate learning outcomes tied to transformative teacher growth and situated in tenets of social justice. Using student interview data, the author posits that service learning fails…

This article presents findings from a research study wherein participants demonstrated the use of similes, metaphors, and analogies, termed "conceptual metaphors," in response to disorienting dilemmas instigated by breast cancer. In this qualitative case study of 18 breast cancer survivors, conceptual metaphors were used in three…

In order to have long-term impact ESD concepts, practices and policies should move into societal, policy and research arenas with high visibility and traction. In the process of going "transboundary", the ESD label may fade but the practice and organization of social and collaborative learning may gain.

Problem-solving skills are often identified as a key component of 21st century education. This study collected data from students enrolled in a university-level Liberal Education science course called "Problems and Puzzles," which introduced students to the theory and practice of problem solving via puzzles. Based on classroom…

The present study tested a model showing how different aspects of high school courses focusing on social justice and prosocial development predicted prosocial intentions of students (N = 362) 2 to 29 years after they had completed the courses. Results indicated that students reporting more transformative class experiences (higher critical…

Education under neoliberal reform has been targeted as an indispensable source of profit. Market-based reforms have commodified education and are transforming public school into a corporatized industry concerned not with democracy but with the smooth functioning of the capitalist economy. Targeting public schooling as a site in which to accumulate…

In the twenty-first century, learning and teaching at school must prepare young people for engaging in a complex and dynamic world deeply influenced by globalisation and the revolution in digital technology. In addition to the use of digital technologies, is the development of flexible learning spaces. It is claimed that these developments demand,…

Service-learning environments are complex learning contexts that generate a level of disequilibrium or anxiety that may or may not result in transformative learning. This phenomenological study examined student reflective writings from an Honors service-learning course at a medium-sized mid-western university for evidences of transformative…

This paper explores how a preservice teacher defined, experienced, and transacted with multiple professional communities in becoming a social justice-minded urban English teacher. It extends research on urban teachers and professional communities by arguing that professional community in relation to urban teachers must be informed by…

Adult educators are often part-time workers or volunteers and, as such, they must simultaneously negotiate multiple professional identities. This negotiation process may trigger conflict among professional identities, which can provide an opportunity for transformational learning. In this case study, the authors explore this conflict and learning…

This article reports on face-to-face and online qualitative research conducted with 25 teachers from 8 schools in Australia that explored their experience of mindfulness and reflection in relation to a self-identified relational dilemma with a student, colleague, or parent who was causing them concern at work. The aim of this study was to find out…

Service-learning practitioners design community engagement activities to affect students in powerful and even transformative ways. This qualitative study explores the long-term impacts (3-16 years after graduation) of participation in a senior-level service-learning course. Through interviews with 20 randomly selected participants, the researchers…

This article describes a study of the Cultural, Economic, Political, and Social Youth Leadership Development Program (CEPS), an identity-building program for disengaged youth, conducted by a community-university alliance in northern Manitoba, Canada. The study was conducted through the lens of transformative learning theory. Findings indicate…