9 - Transformative learning and sustainability: sketching the conceptual ground (2011)

Summary

This paper was invited after I gave a talk on transformative learning at a conference held at the University of Gloucestershire in 2009, at a time when interest in this area began to grow. I try to give an accessible account of transformative learning theory and present some brief examples of practice. It includes a fairly detailed description of Bateson's important learning levels theory which has been influential in my own work. This paper has proved popular and is well cited. I might add a caution regarding the term “transformative learning” which has been used increasingly of late in the field of education, but often too lightly to really justify its use. Rather, it implies deep learning – a “shift of consciousness” (see Morrell & O’Connor 2002 below).

INTRODUCTION

Back in 1974, the economist E. F. Schumacher, whose work was seminal to the rise and development of ecological thought in the UK, wrote, “The volume of education has increased and continues to increase, yet so do pollution, exhaustion of resources, and the dangers of ecological catastrophe. If still more education is to save us, it would have to be education of a different kind: an education that takes us into the depth of things” (Schumacher, written 1974, published 1997). This quote illustrates a fundamental conundrum: how far education, which for some decades has been identified as key to resolving environmental and sustainability issues particularly at international level, is (as David Orr has pointed out) part of the problem. Orr (2004) dismisses the problems in education which occupy much educational discourse, and, echoing Schumacher, highlights the problem of education. He points out that there is no necessary correlation between high educational achievement and socially and environmentally benign sustainable behaviours, but rather the opposite. It is because of these paradoxes and arguments that educators interested in sustainability and social justice have, in recent years, looked to learning theory for possible ways forward.

In particular, the concept of transformative or transformational learning has aroused increasing interest, as a way of conceiving and practising educational forms that might “take us to the depth of things”.

There is an assumption in much learning discourse, in educational conferences, and in university teaching and learning strategies, that learning per se, is self-evidently a “good thing”. On this assumption, attention is often given to making learning effective, to learning to learn, learning methods and so on.