Expanding Transformation Theory

Affinities between Jack Mezirow and Emancipatory Educationalists

Alexis Kokkos

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9780429647215
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Expanding Transformation Theory offers a deeper understanding of the philosophy, principles and major components of Transformation Theory, which was developed by Jack Mezirow. It provides a thorough comprehension of the affinities of the theory with other emancipatory theoretical views and provides the readers with an expanded insight of the core theoretical framework that will support their research and educational practice.

The book juxtaposes Mezirow's perspective with those of ten major emancipatory educationalists – Dewey, Freire, Gould, Marsick, Socrates, Kegan, Greene, Argyris, Illeris, and Jarvis, respectively, who all share the idea of learning with the aim of changing problematic perceptions and behaviours. Such issues as convergences and divergences among the theoretical perspectives, as well as the impact of the theoretical ideas that Mezirow incorporated in his work, are addressed. The work of Mezirow is further reviewed in order to pinpoint the dimensions which appear to have been confirmed and endure over time, and, in turn, those that seem to need expansion or even revision.

This book will be of great interest to researchers, academics, students, and adult educators who are interested in transformative learning theory and emancipatory education

Part 1

Strong influences

Chapter 1

Seeking the traces of Dewey’s thought in Mezirow’s work

Natassa Raikou and Thanassis Karalis

Introduction

When Jack Mezirow was born in Fargo, North Dakota in 1923, John Dewey was already a professor at the Philosophy Department of Columbia University, where later, in 1968, Mezirow also served at Teachers College. Columbia University was the incubator for Dewey’s pragmatic philosophy and Mezirow’s Transformation Theory. However, this is not the only common biographical element shared by the two thinkers. A second element, shown later, is the foundation of their theoretical approaches to learning and education, which are the principles of Pragmatism. A third common element is the fact that they wrote some of their most influential works at a mature age (examples include Dewey‘s Experience and Nature (1929), Experience and Education (1938a) and Logic: The Theory of Inquiry (1938b), as well as all of Mezirow’s books on transformative learning), while remaining scientifically active until the end of their lives. As Jackson (2006, p. 58) points out regarding Dewey, “instead of retiring at age 65 and quickly becoming quiescent, as so often happened in those days to professors […] Dewey’s literary output […] became even richer and more profuse than before,” which can certainly be said by anyone who studies Mezirow’s biography as well.

Given these biographical coincidences, in this chapter, we attempt to trace the effect of Dewey’s work on that of Mezirow, with a certain limitation: Dewey’s work is wide-ranging as it includes about 40 books and 700 articles in more than 140 scientific journals (Eames & Field, 2003), which necessarily means that Mezirow’s references to Dewey can, in most of the cases, only pertain to general considerations.

John Dewey in the work of Jack Mezirow

In this section we briefly present the references to Dewey that we have identified in Mezirow’s work, which we further analyse in the appropriate sections. Dewey’s influence on Mezirow’s perspective turns out to be extremely complex, as this effect is diffused, extensive and certainly difficult to detect in several cases. The references that we have identified and which we later quote are rather disproportionately few. Moreover, we note that in some of his texts (e.g., Mezirow, 1990, 1991a), Mezirow mentioned Dewey as one of his original influences, but this is not the case in a number of his other texts (e.g., 1996, 2000a, 2009a). However, we consider that these omissions do not constitute a disregard for the work of Dewey by Mezirow, but a rather conscious avoidance of the self-evident. We thus adopt the view expressed by Lintzeris (2007, p. 40), who claims that “speaking at a wider level of spiritual influence, it must be assumed that Mezirow has been influenced by fundamental aspects of American pragmatic philosophy (Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, John Dewey),” adding that “one might claim that the extent of the effect of pragmatism […] on Mezirow’s Transformation Theory has been underestimated” (ibid.). To support the claim that Mezirow’s references to Dewey’s work are relatively limited, we note, compared to the extent of the effect that we have identified in references to Dewey, especially in Mezirow’s first works (indicatively, Mezirow, 1969, p. 3, 1971, p. 137, 1985, p. 18), without explicitly quoting or including Dewey’s works in the list of biographical references at the end; this is incompatible with Mezirow’s overall systematicity and meticulousness with regard to the effects of others on his work. Ultimately, we argue that Mezirow’s self-positioning in the Pragmatism trend and in the process aiming at its renewal and enrichment, particularly with respect to the role of the Symbolic Interactionism approach in his work, has resulted in his concluding that many of Dewey’s views are somewhat commonplace within that context and, therefore, do not warrant a special mention when discussing them. Consequently, an attempt to investigate the relationship between Mezirow’s work and that of Dewey can largely be about identifying the broader influences that the former has received from the wider Pragmatism trend and its individual versions (early Pragmatism, Instrumentalism, Symbolic Interactionism).

One of the early references that we have found is located in Mezirow’s Toward a Theory of Practice in Education with Particular Reference to the Education of Adults (1969). In this case, the references to Dewey are rather general, given that Mezirow mainly presented Blumer’s point of view and the perspective of Symbolic Interactionism in the more general Pragmatism trend, with a particular focus on the centrality attributed to meaning. Initially, in this article, Mezirow criticized those who perceive meaning as an intrinsic property of phenomena or as an expression of attitudes, emotions, memories, senses and ideas emerging from one’s perception. He then adopted Blumer’s position that the individual makes meaning through an active process of what is going on in a situation, pointing out that “meanings emerge out of human interaction as rules or habits of action” (ibid., p. 137). He also argued that it is necessary to emphasize the crucial role that an individual plays in determining his behaviour in response to the expected reactions of others. An important part of this work is an introduction to Grounded Theory, which Mezirow described as an unprecedented opportunity for the professional development of adult educators. Note that there is no specific reference to Dewey in the bibliography. This is also the case in a subsequent work (Mezirow, 1985), where there is a general reference to “John Dewey and the pragmatists” (p. 18), which indicates that they are responsible for showcasing instrumental learning as being comparable to the research methods used in natural sciences. Furthermore, in his chapter in the collective volume Fostering Critical Reflection in Adulthood (Mezirow, 1990), there are only two references to Dewey, the first of which refers to the concept of habit and the other to the definition of reflection.

Mezirow’s most extensive references to Dewey are found in Transformative Dimensions of Adult Learning (1991a) and are based on Dewey’s book How We Think (1933). These references focus mainly on the concept of meaning, epistemic assumptions, and learning as a problem-solving process. Finally, in his paper Transformative Learning Theory (2009b), Mezirow again referred to Dewey in the section on epistemic assumptions, focusing his analysis on the notion of warranted assertability, to which we refer in the next section.

Next, we focus on the areas which, based on those mentioned previously, in our opinion illustrate the main points of the interface between the two theorists, as well as the impact of Dewey’s work on the work of Mezirow.

Pragmatism

In order to approach the core of Dewey’s work, it is necessary to refer to the basic principles of Pragmatism, the position of Dewey in the course of the development of this theoretical view, and to the various versions and trends that this view contains.

Pragmatism is a philosophical trend that originated in the United States with the work of Peirce and then that of James and Dewey, who are considered to comprise the triad of thinkers who both founded Pragmatism and largely determined its effect on philosophical thought. Peirce (1974) summarized the basic principle of Pragmatism as: the whole meaning of a concept is contained in the consequence of its application in practice. Pragmatism is thus distinguished by the emergence of the relationship between theory and practice. In this context, experience is a lasting transaction between subject and object, which are ultimately formed through this process, while the truth is but a belief that remains to be validated by experience and is therefore considered to be constantly revisable (Seigfried, 1999). In this view, experience includes, beyond the present, a future dimension as well, since the understanding of the meaning of a phenomenon is related to its consequences (Elkjaer, 2009).

According to Dewey, in particular, as Delaney (1999) rightly mentions, “successful cognition was a more dynamic matter of a present resolution of a problematic situation resulting in a reconstructed experience or consummation” (p. 230). For this reason, he suggested avoiding the use of the term truth and, instead of that, he put forward the notion of warranted assertability, which basically refers to what we have mentioned – understanding that the meaning of a situation is feasible only through the effects and the consequences that the situation creates.

Gradually, within the framework of pragmatic philosophy, the theory of Symbolic Interactionism emerged from George Herbert Mead and became more widely known through his student, Herbert Blumer. According to Mead, despite the fact that there is an external reality to our thoughts, our awareness of it is constructed in an active way by us, since meaning is not contained in things, but it comes about as a result of the interaction of subject and object (Oliver, 2012). The theory of Symbolic Interactionism refers to a dialectical circle where “man is an author of his social world, but he is also a product of society” (Shalin, 1986, p. 17).

Regarding Mezirow’s relationship with Pragmatism and Symbolic Interactionism, we consider it important to refer to what Marsick and Finger (1994) mention in their paper on his life and work. This paper is based, among other sources, on an interview of Mezirow himself, focusing on the influence of other theorists on the formulation of his theory. The two authors propose five phases for Mezirow’s scientific activity, whereby the influence of pragmatic philosophy dominated the first phase. This is the period in which community development was Mezirow’s main concern and was considered as common for that generation of adult educators in the United States (ibid.). The second phase (the decade from 1968 to 1978), which began with Mezirow’s move to Teachers College, is characterized as the period of Symbolic Interactionism and Grounded Theory. During this period, Mezirow appeared to be particularly influenced by Blumer and focused primarily on the process of making meaning: “Symbolic Interactionism led Mezirow to define learning as the psychosociological process by which people interpret reality and make meaning of their experiences” (ibid., p. 48). This period, which is more closely related to the purposes of this chapter, essentially ended with the publication of Mezirow’s first work on perspective transformation (1978).

However, even though the effect of Pragmatism and its individual currents was more apparent in the periods mentioned, it is in fact found in all aspects of Mezirow’s work. For example, in one of his last papers (2009b), he explicitly referred to the concept of warranted assertability and its importance for the process of critical reflection: “This judgment, which John Dewey refers to as ‘grounded’ or ‘warranted’ assertion, is based on criteria such as evaluation of evidence, consideration of expert opinion, adequacy of argument, and implications of the proposed solution” (p. 21). In the same paper, he extended this view of Dewey and linked it creatively with Habermas’ view of communicative learning.

In conclusion, Mezirow adopted the core of Pragmatism, especially the approaches of Dewey and Symbolic Interactionism, with respect to the ways of making meaning of reality, the relationship between knowledge and action, and the fact that the validity of the process of critical reflection is subject to the investigation of its consequences. In the following sections, we attempt to highlight these effects across the whole spectrum of the conceptual structure of Transformation Theory, examining its main components in the context of the earlier approaches of Dewey.

Habits of mind and frame of reference

One of the fundamental concepts of Mezirow’s view of learning is the frame of reference, which is defined as “a ‘meaning perspective’ – the structure of assumptions and expectations through which we filter sense impressions” (Mezirow, 2000b, p. 16), while acting in this way is how we create our experiences. The frame of reference is two-dimensional and includes:

1. habits of mind, which are “sets of assumptions – broad, generalized, orienting predispositions that act as a filter for interpreting the meaning of experience” (2000b, p. 17). In another text, Mezirow (1996) referred to abstract habits of expectation, that is “‘meaning perspectives’ that serve as filters or codes to shape, delimit and often distort our experience” or “sets of codes (which) filter and constrain our understanding of reality” (p. 6).
2. points of view, consisting of “clusters of meaning schemes – sets of immediate and specific expectations, beliefs, feelings, attitudes and judgments – that tacitly direct and shape a specific interpretation” (2000b, p. 18). They are essentially the cohesive artefacts of habits of mind, which ultimately act as interpretative forms of experience.

The concept of habit was the main subject of a little-known book by Dewey, entitled Human Nature and Conduct (1922), where he elaborated extensively on this concept and its importance in shaping behaviour. He considered the concept of habit to include both physical and moral habits. Defining the concept of habit (ibid.), he stated that habit is an acquired way in which we per...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Endorsements
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of tables and figures
• List of contributors
• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• PART 1: Strong influences
• PART 2: Epistemological affinities
• PART 3: European interlocutors
• Concluding reflections
• Index