Transformational Learning

It has been understood for a number of years that the learning process has a strong social contextual element (Lave, 1996). The social learning framework has been described from a number of different perspectives and disciplines. Insights from psychology, sociology and anthropology have been incorporated in various ways by those who have viewed education from the cognitive, constructivist or situated learning perspectives (Brown & Duguid, 1996a; Brown & Duguid, 1996b; Brown & Duguid, 2002; Fuhrer, 1996; Lave, 1996; Lave & Wenger, 1991; McClellan, 1996; Streibel, 1996). Brown & Duguid, 1996a, 1996b), Lave & Wenger (1991) and others have interpreted the learning process in terms of the creation of a new social self. The learner is viewed as one joining a community, variously described as a community of learners or a community of practitioners, more commonly known as a community of practice. [see Infed Encyclopedia - Informal Education and Lifelong Learning]

Examining the socially-based mechanisms of acquiring new information, new skills, and new social relationships in this way can give us another essential point of view concerning the learning process. Situated learning (Lave, 1996) and community of practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991; Wenger, 1998) perspectives have viewed the learner as a cognitive apprentice or participant in cognitive mentoring (Schlager, Poirier & Means, 1996), one who is changing her understanding in the process of being guided by others who are more skillful, better informed, or wiser in ways that are appropriate to the learning domain being explored. Situated learning and community of practice perspectives have additionally proposed that an essential part of the apprenticeship is the creation of a new social self, an additional identity as a part of the community the learner joins (Brown & Duguid, 1996a, 1996b; Lave & Wenger, 1991; Wenger, 1998).  (see the article on practice) (Wenger's perspective on this is explained more fully below).

Transformational learning is one possible outcome to the learning process. One may interact more deeply with the subject matter studied, or with the people involved in the study, causing a change of perspective or an increase in valuable insights.

Transformational Learning: Born of a Struggle

Transformational learning occurs as the result of a struggle, or series of struggles, which when resolved, provide greater insight and integration and possibly greater confidence or expansion of confidence (Cranton 1994; Imel, 2001). This type of learning is often a difficult process to experience, but ultimately worth the effort.
 
Mezirow, an acknowledged pioneer in Transformational Learning, developed a theory on this subject that has been modified and expanded through the past twenty-five years. An early formulation (1981, quoted in Merriam & Caffarella, 1998) of the stages in this process is as follows:

1. The learner experiences a disorienting dilemma.
2. Self-examination reveals feelings of guilt, shame or inadequacy.
3. Critical assessment of cognitive assumptions, emotional and social expectations takes place, often with help from others.
4. There is recognition that others share similar experiences and have successfully negotiated the process of change.
5. The learner examines options for new roles, relationships, and actions. The models of achievement encountered in stage 4 provide a range of options.
6. The learner builds competence and self-confidence by exploring new roles.
7. The learner further considers new possible courses of action.
8. In this process the learner acquires knowledge and skills for implementing those possible plans.
9. Provisional attempts are made in new roles, building confidence in new perspectives and relationships.
10. Reintegration into society is made possible based on the learner's new perspective.

Transformational learning may occur when people are required by circumstance or choice to struggle in areas that challenge them intellectually, emotionally, somatically, socially, morally, or in any combination of those areas. If they successfully navigate the disorientation and distress, incorporating new insights and perspectives into their lives, we can say that transformational learning has taken place.
 
As the steps outlined above by Mezirow indicate, the learner experiencing transformational learning is involved in the process of creating a new social self. The old self is inadequate to the challenge presented by the dilemma. The learner can either try to escape the dilemma or find healthy ways to cope with it by responding to the challenge. It is telling that in Mezirow's ten steps, the learner is not a solitary figure facing the challenge alone. Help is given through the examples of others who have successfully negotiated the challenge and in the feedback they or others may provide as to the adequacy of the new roles that are attempted in response to the challenge. One does not construct this new social self, the one capable of handling the dilemma, strictly through the use of one's own resources. One needs the help of the community (however loosely defined) of those who have been successful. In the process of negotiating a successful response to the dilemma, the person has been transformed – he or she has taken on new roles, (i.e. a new identity or repertoire of practice) as a key part of the process of transformational learning.

Skill Acquisition as Potentially Transformational

One example of a disorienting dilemma comes in mastering physical skills, especially those that require changes in one's way of perceiving, visualizing and problem-solving, which also involve elements of physical coordination. Because of the work that he has done in analyzing the continuum of skills necessary to acquire proficiency in a variety of tasks that require both cognitive and physical learning, Romiszowski in his psychomotor theory (1999) is able to show connections with various other theories, and to address the cognitive, affective, psychomotor and social domains. Romiszowski has given helpful insights into transformational learning that may result from meeting or attempting these challenges. In his view, when a person is placed in a difficult learning situation that challenges the learner's sense of self, his or her feeling of adequacy as a person is brought into question. This challenge has the potential to be damaging to one's self-esteem, or to become an opportunity for searching questions, for reflection, for guidance from others not usually consulted, for personal growth or for renegotiation of that previous sense of self.

Any stressful, disorienting experience, where one is confronted with one's inabilities to cope with new demands, can spark the process of transformation. Transformation is only one possible outcome, as the learner may not have the resources or motivation to achieve cognitively and emotionally adequate levels of proficiency in meeting the new challenge. If we do not get adequate help, or do not appropriately use the help we are given, we may deepen any previous feelings of frustration, inadequacy, negative self-image, and hamper future willingness to attempt new, difficult tasks.

When a person is required to master a new skill or demonstrate new levels of proficiency in an subject new to them, they will experience the disorienting dilemma described earlier, if they truly want to master the new skill, new knowledge or enter the community which practices those skills and embodies that knowledge. We may picture a person wanting to become a police officer, firefighter, physician or architect. There are numerous skills and sub-skills that a non-expert must master, as well as all of the various interconnected bodies of knowledge which correspond with the skills to be mastered.

Foster, agreeing with Mezirow (1991) that transformative learning is often a painful process, observes that second language learning, as an example, is no exception. Others, such as Cranton (1994), have asserted that subject-oriented learning is usually not difficult or painful in the way emancipatory learning can be, this relative ease does not apply to language learning or learning with similar levels of stress. (We are using the terms transformative, transformational and emancipatory interchangeably here, referring to a change in perspective and values which continues throughout the rest of one's life, following the successful resolution of a disorienting dilemma).

There are a number of essential differences between second language learning, learning how to drive a vehicle, operate a complex machine, or perform well in sports, art, music or drama on the one hand and typical subject-oriented learning on the other. First of all, learners face increasingly difficult skill acquisition, without time to absorb and internalize these skills before being required to demonstrate them before fellow learners and at least one expert. It is not a question of whether or not one will make mistakes. It is more a matter of how often, and how such mistakes are evaluated by one's peers and instructor, as well as how this mistake-ridden process is viewed by the learner. One's self-image is tied up with certain forms of learning, because of a sense of identity one has or wants to develop. (See the article on identity formation)

Skill Levels and Potential for Transformation

Transformational learning is unlikely to occur at lower levels of proficiency, however. Whether we are speaking of proficiency in a second language or skill in driving a semi, it is only the successful completion of the struggle that produces full transformation. Anything less is an acknowledgment that the necessary skills are incomplete, that acceptance as a regular member of the practice is lacking, that the automatic and enjoyable level of using one's new skills has not been achieved. Learning begins at the periphery of the practice, but there must be an adequate level of proficiency for social acceptance as a peer to take place. Some communities of practice remain closed for those who cannot or will not persevere into proficiency. A truck driver who cannot back into a narrow space, or a baseball player who cannot hit a 90 mile per hour baseball, or a language learner who cannot speak a coherent sentence are all stuck at the periphery of the practice, and are excluded from legitimacy in the eyes of the full participants (Brown & Duguid, 1996a; Brown & Duguid, 1996b; Brown & Duguid, 2002; Fuhrer, 1996; Lave, 1996; Lave & Wenger, 1991; McClellan, 1996).
 
The concept of learning taking place in a community of practice is one developed first by Lave and Wenger (1991), and further defined by Wenger following a year of observation of learning in a business setting. Wenger further refined the central concept of Legitimate Peripheral Participation (LPP) as the key mechanism of learning, a way of describing the apprenticeship process. LPP is a fundamental concept, capturing as it does the elements of legitimacy (the apprentice is given a "real" or legitimate function, which is nevertheless limited, or peripheral, not being part of the central practice of the community. The perspective of practice, one that grew out of earlier anthropological and sociological analysis of learning as situated, (embedded in a practicing community, and not as abstract facts nor disconnected skills), is a perspective shared by all who are heir to the social theories of learning inspired and shaped by Vygotsky and his followers.

As the diagram above shows, there are multiple levels of participation in a community of practice. Wenger has conceptualized the types of participation as comprising the core group, the active practitioners, occasional practitioners, those who are peripheral and those who are tangential to the practice (Wenger, 2003). The roles involved in this analysis often bridge two or more types of participation. Accordingly, leaders come from both core members and regular members. Beginners may start off as peripheral members of the community, or they may be occasional practitioners. Visiting experts are usually only occasional in their involvement, though they may be regulars or part of the core as well.
 
A person can (and usually does) belong to multiple communities of practice through the process called multimembership by Wenger (1998). Essentially, multimembership involves a recognition that each of us is a part of more than one community of practice, and that we normally move between these communities without a conscious sense of doing so. Without going into a great deal of detail here, we can grasp the essence of Wenger's perspective on learning by looking at the following diagram.

Learning is not seen as simply acquiring new knowledge or skills. It is a matter of changing one's identity, from one who does not engage in a desired practice to one who does so. The process of acquiring the knowledge brings a person into new social relations with others, in the form of apprenticeship. As skills are developed, one enters the practice that defines the community, and is accepted at least as a peripheral participant.
 
One is a new person because she has experienced new meaning, or a new perspective on previous understandings. This is part of the process of successfully negotiating the dilemma of being incompetent and ignorant in a new area of expertise. One has become an apprentice, not just to a single master teacher or practitioner, but to a whole community of practitioners either directly or by proxy through a few visible representatives. As competency in the new practice is achieved step by step (sometimes over a period of years rather than weeks or months), one's identity has changed to reflect this belonging to a distinct group of practitioners.
 
Because communities of practice define themselves through engagement in practice, they are essentially informal, though there may be formal definitions to the practice as well, in the form of certificates, degrees, uniforms, regalia or titles. The ways in which they change and grow are organic and not tightly controlled. Membership in the community is not necessarily defined by institutional categories. Peripherality is an ambiguous position, and only over time can we tell whether the peripheral participant will enter the practice fully as a core participant or not. Competence in the practice is not merely the ability to perform certain actions or the possession of certain pieces of information or the mastery of certain skills in the abstract. Competent membership in a community of practice is this defined by three characteristics:
 
• mutuality of engagement-ability to establish relationships with others in a group;
• accountability to the enterprise, including the ability to contribute;
• negotiability of one's participation in coordination with the repertoire of the group.
 
In the theoretical analysis done by Wenger of learning and practice in a workplace, there is a recognition of the fact that no one, even a core member of a group, is absolutely competent at all times and in all tasks. This gives room for newcomers to negotiate more limited responsibilities with their lower expectations. In the real world of groups that see their practice as very specialized, difficult, and not readily open to outsiders, the periphery is small and much harder to penetrate. Practice is defined very narrowly, and those who do not measure up are not considered real members of the community of practice, but mere "wannabes." This would be the case with a police force, or of an elite squad within the force, for example. So there is a range of penetrability among communities of practice.

A new social self, one expanded by membership in two or more learning communities or communities of practice, is the product of this transformational process of adding another skill set, body of knowledge or (sub)culture, becoming an accepted member (in some sense) of that new culture, and acting as a bridge person between the cultures. Since this is an additive rather than a subtractive process when done well, with no loss of one's native culture, the potential gains are worth the struggle and time necessary to achieve multimembership. The struggle does carry scars, as the studies done by Norton and Kanno attest. Not everyone achieves an integrated perspective on his or her linguistic and identity-based struggles, though we have highlighted the positive potential for transformation. The absence of positive factors such as community acceptance, a high degree of individual motivation, helpful mentors and necessary continuity, can short-circuit the transformational process, as can early traumatic experiences that remain unresolved (Kanno, 2003; Norton, 2000).

Practitioners - Essential To Transformational Learning

As Mezirow's ten steps of transformational learning indicate, the assistance of a community of practitioners is essential to the transformational process. As a new social self is constructed with the help of that community, such as in a community of practice, the learner does not necessarily leave behind all of her or his old insights, practices, social ties and roles. The role of cognitive apprentice as seen in the community of practice perspective has been fleshed out in a new understanding of identity and practice as well as mastery of a new domain of knowledge.
 
Transformational learning can result from the process of deeply engaging and successfully negotiating the dilemma encountered, whether it is the dilemma of culture acquisition or some other extremely difficult task. The person who has successfully experienced transformational learning has added a new social self, but has not necessarily discarded or repudiated the old social self. Through multimembership, one has expanded her or his old perspective, and has become a person with multiple identities, able to negotiate in multiple roles and situations. Learning, in its broadest conception, is a matter of becoming a participant in multiple communities of practice, at one level or another, and of successfully integrating the different transformations that are involved in this process.

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