Stances of Transformative Education PDF

# Stances of Transformative Education ## Cultural-Spiritual - **Focus of the Theory** - Focuses on how learners construct knowledge (narratives) as part of the transformative learning experience. - Concerned with the connections between individuals and social structures. - **Approach**...

# Stances of Transformative Education ## Cultural-Spiritual - **Focus of the Theory** - Focuses on how learners construct knowledge (narratives) as part of the transformative learning experience. - Concerned with the connections between individuals and social structures. - **Approach** - Engaging storytelling on a personal and social level through group inquiry. - Teacher takes on the role of collaborator with an emphasis on group inquiry and narrative reasoning. - **Purpose** - Helps learners develop cross-cultural relationships as well as spiritual awareness. ## Neurobiological - **Focus of the Theory** - Based on the discovery that the brain structure actually changes during the learning process. - Learning is seen as volitional, curiosity-based, discovery-driven, and mentor-assisted. - **Approach** - Learners must feel discomfort prior to discovery. - Learning is rooted in the individuals experiences, needs, and interests. - Strengthened by emotive, sensory, and kinesthetic experiences. - **Purpose** - Helps individual learners restructure the ways that they make meaning in the world. ## Phenomenological - **Focus of the Theory** - Intellectual, psychological, and moral dimensions of learning foster personal and social change. - **Approach** - Learners prepare themselves as knowers, doers, and beings to live meaningfully in the world with others. - **Purpose** - Develop learners' consciousness of their own and others' thoughts, language, and reasoning, allowing them to direct their thinking more strategically to specific intentions. ## Planetary - **Focus of the Theory** - Address fundamental issues in the field of education as a whole. - Recognizes the interconnectedness among universe, planet, natural environment, human community, and personal world. - **Approach** - Reorganization of the political, social, and educational systems in which learners belong. - **Purpose** - Helps the learner identify how they view human counterparts as well as how they relate with the physical world. ## Psychoanalytic - **Focus of the Theory** - A process of individuation, a lifelong journey of coming to understand oneself. - Psychoanalytic theories originated with the work of Sigmund Freud. - **Approach** - Individuals come to understand their identity through reflection on psychic structures. - **Purpose** - Helps individuals discover new talents. - Gives individuals a sense of empowerment and confidence, a deeper understanding of one's inner self, and a greater sense of self-responsibility. ## Psychocritical or Cognitive-Rational - **Focus of the Theory** - Aims at effecting change in a frame of reference which develops autonomous thinking in adult learners. - Focus is on the individual learner. - Cognitive and rational process. - **Approach** - Learners must first become critically reflective of their own assumptions underlying intentions, values, beliefs, and feelings. - Learners must then engage in discourse with one another, which is an opportunity for them to critically examine evidence, arguments, and alternate points of view in support of competing interpretations. - **Purpose** - Develops autonomous thinking in adults, the ability for adults to think independently. ## Psychodevelopmental - **Focus of the Theory** - Results in epistemological change, change in how we make meaning. - Examines how education can help students make sense of their lives. - **Approach** - Intuitive, holistic, and contextually based. - Mentor guides students in a learning journey affected by the student's social environment. - **Purpose** - Students are able to move through developmental transitions and are changed in the process. ## Race-Centric - **Focus of the Theory** - People of African descent, most often black women, are the subjects of the transformative experience. - Emphasizes the social-political dimensions of learning. - **Approach** - Engages polyrhythmic realities, the students' lived experience within a sociocultural, political, and historical context. - **Purpose** - Promotes inclusion and empowerment. - Gives the learner the ability to negotiate effectively between and across cultures. ## Social-Emancipatory or Consciousness-Raising - **Focus of the Theory** - Aims at fostering Critical Consciousness – a process in which learners develop the ability to analyze, pose questions, and take action on the social, political, cultural, and economic contexts that influence and shape their lives. - Focuses on political liberation and freedom from oppression of individuals and groups. - **Approach** - Learners engage in praxis with one another, which included dialogue and problem-posing, which is intended to help learners develop awareness of structures within their society that may be contributing to inequality and oppression. - **Purpose** - Fosters freedom among learners by enabling them to reflect on their world and change it.