1. Critique — Transformative Learning
December 2010

2. Critique of Mezirow
Despite its roots in women’s social movements, it is separated from context & reflective of male values of individualism, rationality, autonomy (Clark & Wilson)
Despite its build on adult development, it may confuse transformation with “normal” development & underplay social construction of self (Tennant)
Despite its roots in Habermas, it lacks a theory of social change / its focus is first on individual’s emancipation (Collard & Law, 1989) & does not address power inequities (Hart, 1990)
Despite recognition of pre-verbal and non-verbal knowing, it is overly dependent on rational discourse

3. Clark & Wilson: Context
“Methodological individualism” (Welton): “ten-step transformational learning process is conceptualized as a psychological process, located within the women” (Clark & Wilson, p. 78)
Decontextualized theory:
“contextual elements . . .play a subordinate role to individual agency”
“theory reflects the humanistic assumption of a unified rational self”

4. Clark & Wilson: Mezirow’s Theory
Key assumptions are: “learner-centeredness, critical discourse, and self-directedness’ “reflect respectively, the hegemonic American values of individualism, rationality and autonomy” (Clark & Wilson, p. 80)
Bernstein: “reasoning is a practical process of adjudicating among competing arguments standards for making those judgments exist within the community itself.” (Clark & Wilson, p. 88)

5. Tennant on Clark & Wilson
“His concern is with the social within the individual, especially its capacity to generate dysfunctional meaning perspectives Mezirow does not assume a unified rational self [pers. transf.] is based on the notion of an underdeveloped or distorted self
In addition, Mezirow clearly recognises the dialectical relationship between the individual and society” (p. 36)

6. Tennant: Meaning schemes vs. meaning perspectives
Development: transformed meaning schemes (p. 41)
Perspective transformation “developmental shift (a new world view) rather than simply developmental progress” (p. 41)

7. Tennant: Psych. Dev. as Social Construct
“. . . the concept of self-development over the life course is itself a social construction.” (p. 37)
“history of state intervention and regulation”
“our interactions with others are partly based upon presumptions about age” (p. 38)
“Many normative life-cycle changes may be experienced as being a fundamental change in world view but in reality they fit quite neatly into expected life-cycle patterns” (p. 39)

8. Tennant: P.T. & Adult Dev.
“distinguish between ‘normative’ psychological development (. . . through expected life cycle stages or phases within a given world view), and the type of developmental shift implied by perspective transformation, which involves some level of social critique (that is, the questioning of a given world view).” (Tennant, p. 34)

9. Collard & Law Mezirow
“the fundamental problem : the lack of a coherent, comprehensive theory of social change evident in his selective interpretation and adaptation of Habermas, and partially dependent on problems within Habermas’s own work” (p. 102)
“Social action is crucial, but it is not the only goal ” (p. 172)
Distortions: socio-cultural, but also epistemic or psychic (p. 172)
It “is profoundly intersubjective but it is not exclusively group mediated.” (p. 173)

10. Collard & Law Mezirow
“It seems that Mezirow is unsure about where to locate his emancipatory theory Freirian co-investigators have an overtly political perspective and agenda Mezirow’s theory allows for political detachment.” (p. 105)
“Is a dogmatic adherence to the notion that all transformative adult learning must result in collective social action however inappropriate the sole determining characteristic of what it means to be a ‘radical’ adult educator? (p. 174)

11. Hart’s Critique: Linking Domains
“Mezirow uses these categories (‘communicative’ and ‘purposive-rational action’) to make distinctions between different kinds of learning domains or learning functions but does not consider them in relation to each other. However, it is precisely this relationship, and the various ways it can be established, interpreted, or misused which is at the core of Habermas’ critical theory.” (p. 128)
“In Habermas’s theories, communicative action therefore functions as the primary category, reflecting his primary concern with dominance relations.” (p. 129)
“In Mezirow’s writings, critique, critical reflection, and perspective transformation are all prime categories. However, he fails to unequivocally place them within the realm of communicative rather than instrumental-strategic rationality.” (p. 129)

12. Hart’s Critique: Power
“By placing the issue of power at the center of analysis, and by viewing emancipatory education primarily as a form of communicative action, the list of distortions is closely associated with the three dimensions of communicative action (and therefore differs from Mezirow’s list . . .): the social-cultural, the interpersonal, and the intrapersonal dimension all three are closely interrelated, and an attempt to critique one distortion, occurring within one particular dimension, can never be severed from a critique of the other two.” (p. 130)

13. Hart: “Morality” of Emancipatory Education
“Although Habermas’s theory of communicative competence reveals the fundamentally communal structure of truth-seeking and norm-shaping and points to the ideal of power-free communication he leaves us with a rather bloodless version of community.” (p. 133)
Neither Habermas nor Mezirow speak to “the life-affirming, positive force of the affectual or ‘libidinal’ undercurrent of human interaction, where the speakers do not abstract from the concreteness of their bodies The new themes are “‘context’ and ‘relationality,’ themes which dominate feminist pedagogy.” (pp )

14. Tools for Transformative Learning (Cranton)
Critical questioning
Consciousness raising (Role taking / playing)
Life history / biography
Journaling
Experiential activities
Critical incident analysis