Identity Awareness

Introduction

Transformative learning, a concept first introduced in 1978 by Jack Mezirow (Imel, 1998) is usually conceived to mean learning to make our own interpretations rather than acting on the purposes, beliefs, judgments, and feelings of others in such a way as to result in healing and transforming persons, institutions, economies, and political systems locally and globally (Garcia 1998).

According to Apostol (2007), individual and social transformation is among the most important goals of education and any education really is and should be transformative, involving a shift in consciousness that begins with teaching and learning. She argued that transformative education is needed today because our society needs to change, as at present, local and global societies are characterized by rampant poverty, social injustice, bigotry, terrorism, environmental degradation, economic disparity between the rich and the poor, women and child abuse, graft and corruption, and unethical use of science and technology.

Also, Sullivan (2003) posited that the deep, structural shift in the basic premises of thought, feelings, and actions involved in transformative learning requires our understanding of ourselves and our self-locations; our relationships with other humans and with the natural world; our understanding of relations of power in interlocking structures of class, race and gender; our body awarenesses, our visions of alternative approaches to living; and our sense of possibilities for social justice and peace and personal joy. These seem to form the underlying thrust of the actual self.