REACCIONES NUCLEARES

Another important approach to the content dimension of learning was developed in relation to adult education in the USA and Canada. This approach does not have a clear, common theoretical basis, but nevertheless it has a certain common inspiration pointing back to John Dewey (e.g. 1916, 1965 [1938]), and especially his colleague at Teachers College, Columbia University in New York, Eduard Lindeman (1885–1953), in the first half of the twentieth century, and to Malcolm Knowles (1913–1997) and Canadian Allen Tough (Lindeman 1926; Tough 1967, 1971; Knowles 1970, 1973) in the 1960s and 1970s. Here I will discuss Jack Mezirow and Stephen Brookfield as two of the most important more recent learning theoreticians in this approach.

Jack Mezirow has many years of practice behind him as a consultant in the field of adult education in different developing countries before returning to the USA at the end of the 1970s and beginning to formulate himself more theoretically. As well as the above-mentioned more general North American tradition of adult education, three other sources of inspiration were very important to Mezirow. First, Brazilian Paulo Freire (see section 7.7), who has worked with liberation pedagogy for poor illiterates in developing countries (Freire 1970). Second, German philosopher and sociologist Jürgen Habermas with a background in German critical theory (in particular, Habermas 1984–87 [1981] – see section 7.4). And third, experience from the American women’s movement, which in the 1970s was behind a number of activities for adult women wishing to return to the education system (Mezirow 1978).

The concept of transformative learning is central in Mezirow; I have already referred to this in section 4.6, where Mezirow’s definition of the concept is also quoted. According to Mezirow, we organise the under- standings we build up through our learning, partly in a series of meaning schemes for different areas of content roughly corresponding to Piaget’s understanding, and partly more generally in some meaning perspectives, which constitute the key frame of reference for our creation of meaning.

We develop most of our meaning perspectives up through childhood and youth, and they then function both consciously and, to a high degree, unconsciously as governing our attitudes and modes of understanding (Mezirow 1990, 1991, 2000).

Transformative learning is about being conscious of, considering and reviewing one’s meaning perspectives and the habits of mind that follow from them. This typically occurs when one discovers in one or other connection that the meaning perspectives do not fit with what one experi- ences or does. Then dissonance or a dilemma arises which one feels one must solve, and this takes place first and foremost through reflection, leading to revision or transformation of the meaning perspectives, i.e. through transformative learning.

Mezirow repeatedly stresses that transformative learning involves emotional aspects to a high degree:

Cognition has strong affective and conative dimensions; all the sensitivity and responsiveness of the person participates in the invention, discovery, interpretation, and transformation of meaning. Transformative learning, especially when it involves subjective reframing, is often an intensely threatening emotional experience in which we have to become aware of both the assumptions undergirding our ideas and those supporting our emotional responses to the need to change.

(Mezirow 2000, pp. 6–7) Nevertheless, it is remarkable, and has been pointed out by many, that Mezirow’s description of the transformative process is, to a high degree, grounded in cognition and content. This has to do with the transformation of meanings and modes of understanding, and, when the emotions are mentioned, they typically appear as a kind of accompanying phenomenon more than as a part of what is transformed. Nor does the social and societal dimension seem to be a direct part, even though Mezirow’s thinking is clearly associated with pedagogical considerations and strong social and democratic engagement (see Illeris 2004).

In relation to the way in which I have defined and used the concept of transformative learning in the last chapter, there is thus a tendency for Mezirow’s own understanding of the concept not to emphasise the signifi- cance of the three dimensions of learning to the same degree. He also sometimes makes use of the concept in connection with learning which, in the terms of this book, would be regarded as accommodative, and he has even mentioned that in some cases transformations can take place through assimilation (Mezirow 1998, p. 191). Nevertheless, I do not think that there are any decisive differences with respect to the intentions that Mezirow and I link to the use of the concept, but rather in the academic traditions on which we build.

1111 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1011 1 2 3111 4 5 6 7 8 9 20111 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 30111 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 40111 1 2 3 44111

Stephen Brookfield was born, brought up and educated in England, but since the 1980s he has lived and worked in the USA, where he also was one of Mezirow’s colleagues at Teachers College in New York.

Although Brookfield’s approach greatly resembles Mezirow’s, each of them has been careful to hold on to their set of concepts and their special angles. Where transformative learning has been central for Mezirow, for Brookfield it is critical thinking and critical reflection, which he has clearly explained, inter alia, in this formulation:

In terms of Mezirow’s transformational theory it is clear that transform- ative learning cannot happen without critical reflection being involved at every stage. Given this, it might seem logical to extrapolate from Mezirow’s comments that the two processes are equivalent – synonyms for each other. Yet this would be a mistake and Mezirow carefully avoids it. Critical reflection is certainly a necessary condition of trans- formative learning, in that the existence of the latter depends on the presence of the former. However, it is not a sufficient condition; in other words, just because critical reflection is occurring does not mean that transformative learning inevitably ensues. An episode of critical reflection on practice does not automatically lead to transformation. As Mezirow acknowledges, the assumptions one holds can be exactly the same after critical reflection as they were before.

(Brookfield 2000a, p. 142) It is thus Brookfield’s opinion that critical thinking or reflection can be very valuable and something that is important to promote in itself, even if it does not lead into demanding and onerous transformative learning. For Brookfield, being able to think critically and getting used to critical thinking is what is central, while transformative learning is something that can accompany this under certain circumstances.

According to Brookfield, critical reflection is something different from, and more than, merely reflection in general. It is about:

• identifying challenging assumptions; • challenging the meaning and the context;

• trying to use one’s imagination and exploring other possibilities; • and that these notions and explorations lead to reflective scepticism. (Brookfield 1987, pp. 7ff.) (Brookfield uses the expressions ‘assumptions’ and ‘sets of assumptions’ more or less as Mezirow uses ‘meaning schemes’ and ‘meaning perspectives’). Brookfield regards critical reflection and thinking as fundamental in a democratic society, from daily life and work to the political level, and

thereby also in adult education programmes. Likewise, in his most recent book (Brookfield 2005) he examines the concept of critical theory in a broader and more general understanding than that which only refers to the so-called Frankfurt School (to which I return in section 7.4).

Brookfield also regards the key tasks of adult education teachers as encouraging the participants to practise critical reflection, and he points out that they themselves must master and practise such an approach (e.g. Brookfield 1990a, 1995). He has, moreover, been greatly interested in how this can be done in practice in many different ways, e.g. through the participants’ analysis of situations which they themselves have experienced as critical (Brookfield 1990b).

What is always crucial for Brookfield is that one constantly questions one’s own problems and reasons, that one questions the assumptions and reasons of others, and that one questions the contexts that set the stage for the situations and matters to which one relates.

Like Mezirow, he explicitly stresses that ‘critical thinking is both emotional and rational’ (Brookfield 1987, p. 7) – but, as for Mezirow, for Brookfield it is nevertheless content and the cognitive that come to the fore in his descriptions. He primarily concerns himself with thinking and reflection and less with experiences, feelings or interaction. But where Mezirow, as mentioned, first and foremost deals with the learning processes that were termed transformative in the previous chapter, although he has no clear delimitation to the accommodative processes, in Brookfield the opposite is almost the case. His focus is predominantly on the accom- modative processes implied by critical thinking and reflection, while transformative learning is seen as something that can be an extension of this in special cases.