Understanding and Promoting Transformative Learning; A Guide for Educators of Adults (2nd edition),
Patricia Cranton, Jossey-Bass, 2006.
Reviewed by Christine Kelly, Senior Lecturer,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management

Cranton's latest edition of Transformative Learning provides a very useful guide to what has happened in the field over the last ten years. Cranton's 1994 edition on the literature of adult education built on 1970 " 1980s humanist perspectives and now her latest one incorporates the changes brought about by ideological and social changes of the mid-1990s to early 2000. Parker Palmer (in rules for social circles) suggests "no fixing, no saving, no advising, no setting each other straight" (Cranton, p 192) and this book embodies that stance. Cranton's thorough review documents simply and clearly what transformative learning means to the adult learner and to educators today.

The new edition explicates current theories for someone who is out of touch with the literature of adult learning, or who is new to the field and would like to grasp the discourse of the field as understood by sophisticated educators. Examples of the adult learner from Cranton's own and others' work illustrate what the theory might mean to a practitioner, and referring to students' experiences and questions, helps make the abstractions concrete and the theory useful to the practitioner. Those promoting transformative learning will find much to guide them in its applications.

One critical aspect of this new volume grew out of her work with her colleague Dirkx which raised questions for her about the importance of an extra-rational approach. She examines the extra-rational in relation to current literature, and in particular in reference to Mezirow.

The chapter on "A Theory in Progress" is particularly helpful in making new distinctions among the intersecting theories of transformative learning. Briefly connecting to Dirkx's "four lenses", Cranton explicates directions in theory that come from other discourses. These discourses include: "connected knowing" versus "independent and autonomous" learning; change brought about through social transformation; groups and organizational transformation; ecological change brought about through social justice, peace and personal issues; and, as mentioned, the extra-rational approach. Cranton indicates that these changes have clarified and have enriched our understanding of transformative learning. The multiplicity of systems or patterns of adult learning is now better understood.

As in the first edition, Cranton pays tribute to the major players in the field, particularly stressing Jack Mezirow's approach through cognitive rational thought and Brookfield's critical reflection. She touches on a developmental approach as defined by Daloz, and includes Dirkx, Tisdell and Tolliver's links to spirituality. Cranton carefully addresses the role of the learner, including individual differences of the learner, specifically drawing on her analysis of Jung's model of psychological types. She also brings in the multiple roles of the educator in support of fostering transformative learning. In a very strong chapter, she suggests that the educator's journey is part of the learner's process.

While reading Cranton's book, I was also reading An Unreasonable Woman by Diane Wilson--the journey of a social activist learner in every respect. Wilson, a shrimper from Seadrift, Texas, turned environmentalist over the pollution of her beloved Lavaca bay. She learns how lonely such fights become when, threatened as they are by her new role,  family, friends and community abandon her. She learns about collusion among companies, politicians, government, and the watchdog agencies presumed responsible for protecting the public. Despite the odds, Wilson refuses to quit fighting. Wilson models every learning distinction Cranton makes in her book. The technical, practical, and emancipatory knowledge acquired expands her ability to negotiate increasingly complex levels of class, culture, and professional, technical expertise and experience. The approaches she takes are as linked to the cognitive rational as they are extra-rational while covering every category in between.

But reading and thinking about these books together is both confirming and disconfirming of our theories. The theories help us make many distinctions about Wilson's journey. The journey is social; many supporters were critical to her. It reveals a capacity to think critically about taken-for-granted assumptions. It is as technical as plumbing, and as liberating (as Cranton suggests plumbing can be). And, finally, painfully, transforming: she fought and won, and, also, lost almost everything--her husband, her boat, and her house. Yet, the questions about theory raised by Cranton come to the fore: how in the changes Wilson endured she chose to live her integrity. How do we understand Wilson's attachment to the sea, or to a community that would make it possible to die for a belief: what became for her a calling, a moral imperative? 

What does our theory suggest about such a profound form of learning?  Cranton mentions integrating the extra-rational with Mezirow's work. A more encompassing view of the theory of transformative learning would integrate and place more emphasis on risk-taking, intuition, context, relationships, and the spiritual. It would incorporate what we know about biology and the brain.

Cranton clearly believes that theory can be as practical in setting the educator's path as well as explaining the learner's. Through her work, we have at our fingertips many theoretical distinctions, as well as frameworks, taxonomies, and tools for our practice and our own transformative journeys. From her thorough examination, Cranton opens up the discussion of where theory should go and what further research it suggests.