Deepening the Understanding of Transformative Learning Processes and ...

Adult education practitioners and researchers in the field of adult learning and education assume that transformative learning does occur in Adult Basic Education (ABE). However, while this broad view of learning processes and outcomes in ABE is shared in adult education practice, in neoliberal times, learning is truncated to transmitting functional skills. This experiential session intends to jointly explore and mutually reflect transformative learning processes and outcomes. The session’s result ought to be a heuristic that is accessible in easy-to-read language which consists of anchor examples that are related to Hoggan’s typology of transformative learning outcomes. This heuristic could be used by practitioners and learners to reflect, jointly or individually, on transformative learning processes and outcomes for evaluation purposes. It could also serve as a basis for further investigating transformative learning by applying a participatory research approach: the voices of learners and practitioners and their expertise could be included in co-constructing knowledge on transformative learning processes and outcomes in ABE. This would highlight the individual, life-changing achievements (personal growth/humanization) as well as the collective, social outcomes (emancipation/democratization) and would counteract the neoliberal narrowing of ABE to functional skills.