Transformative Learning: evolutions of the adult learning theory

The Transformative theory developed in North America by Jack Mezirow in the late 1970’s has gained widespread acclaim and resulted in a flowering of diverse achievements. Forty years later, it has become the dominant theory in the field of adult education at an international level. Growing interest in Transformative Learning goes hand in hand with its dissemination through international conferences and the progressive construction of a dedicated research community. The development of the theoretical model took place recursively and accumulatively. Mezirow identified some basic concepts which he then corrected or modified. The linguistic formulation took place along a dilated temporal period between the end of the 70’s and the early 1990’s. Rather than being constructed in a deductive way both the starting hypothesis of the theory of Transformative Learning and the experimental verification of results imposed themselves inductively. This bottom-up methodological approach appears to have birthed many of the developments of the 1970s theoretical models as: Grounded Theory; Information Theory; Neo-Empirism; Andragogy and Transformative Learning Theory itself. Classical’ deductive theories start from a priori hypotheses; the Transformative Theory emerged from a posteriori premises, in a centrifugal way. Initially, from the results of a study on the learning of a group of adult women and from observations on the practice of educators, Mezirow derived some key concepts, around which collected further elaborations. Successively, Transformative Theory consolidated through new thematic approaches or various application research.