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Transformative Education: A Philosophical Inquiry

Yacek, Douglas W.
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1500072204487494

Abstract Details

2017, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Educational Studies.
It has become commonplace within the educational research community to invoke the transformative power of education. Calls to adopt a “transformative” approach to teaching, learning, pedagogy, assessment and professional education can be heard across the disciplines of educational research today—in fields as different as adult education and school leadership, and as estranged as social justice education and educational psychology. Parallel to this discussion is the increasing usage of the language of transformation by administrators, informational brochures, official websites, and student affairs personnel in higher education. Beyond the English-speaking world, the German fields of educational theory and qualitative educational research have recently seen a flurry of activity on the topic of "transformatorische Bildungsprozesse" (transformative ed-ucational processes). The first aim of this dissertation is to examine some of the common philosophical assumptions that lie behind these various invocations of transformation. What does it mean to undergo a transformative experience? What pedagogical methods are required to bring them about? Where has the idea of a transformative education come from, and what anthropological premises does it assume? These questions are addressed in the first two chapters, which conclude that the various usages of the idea of transformation in education today fall into four different “paradigms” of transformative experience: conversion, overcoming, discovery and initiation. In the third chapter, I explore some of the ethical problems that accompany each of the paradigmatic approaches to transformative education. The central result of this analysis is that only the “initiation paradigm” possesses the necessary resources for addressing the characteristic ethical problems of transformative education, and I therefore defend a revised version of transformative initiation in the fourth chapter. Within the initiation paradigm, educational transformation is standardly conceived as an initiation into disciplinary practices, but in this chapter I argue that this conception should be extended to include an induction into a tragic-ironic tradition. The latter can provide resources to protect against what I call the potentially “deformative” outcomes of practical initiation and challenges the standard conception of mastery as proficiency. In the fifth and final chapter, I assess some recent practical proposals for bringing transformative education into the classroom. Although the current enthusiasm for transformative education carries real promise, careful analysis of its actual proposals reveals that the idea is often appropriated and assimilated to non-transformative, and indeed anti-transformative educational ends.
Bryan Warnick, Ph. D. (Advisor)
Bruce Kimball, Ph. D. (Committee Member)
Jackie Blount, Ph. D. (Committee Member)
Mark Conroy, Ph. D. (Committee Member)
234 p.
Education; Philosophy
Transformation; transformative learning; transformative experience; transformative pedagogy; initiation; phenomenology; identity crisis; irony; philosophy of education; adult education; educational ethics

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Yacek, D. W. (2017). Transformative Education: A Philosophical Inquiry [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1500072204487494

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Yacek, Douglas. Transformative Education: A Philosophical Inquiry. 2017. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1500072204487494.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Yacek, Douglas. "Transformative Education: A Philosophical Inquiry." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2017. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1500072204487494

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1500072204487494
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This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.
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