Transforming Perspectives in Lifelong Learning and Adult Education A Dialogue [Hardcover]

This book constructs a deepening, interdisciplinary understanding of adult learning and imaginatively reframes its transformative aspects. The authors explore the tension at the heart of current understanding of transformative adult learning: that while it can be framed as both easy and imperative, personal transformation is in fact rooted in the context in which we live, our stories and relationships.

At its core, transformation is never easy  nor always desirable  and the authors thus draw on interdisciplinary and auto/biographical inquiry to explore what it means to change our presuppositions and frames of meaning that guide our thinking. Using their linguistic, gendered, academic and cultural differences, the authors illuminate how the social, contextual, cultural, cognitive and psychological dimensions of transformation intertwine. In doing so, they emphasise the importance of transformation as a contingent struggle for meaning and recognition, social justice, fraternity, and the pursuit of truth.  This engaging book will be of interest to students and scholars of transformative learning and education.

Laura Formenti is Professor of General Pedagogy and Director of the PhD programme Education in Contemporary SocietylÃm