Transformative Learning in Intercultural Education

Abstract

Transformative learning is a major theory of adult education that can help us consider ways in which the study of intercultural communication is particularly suited to stimulating personal change. Intercultural communication studies offer continuous opportunities for students to learn new ways of making meaning, both subjective and objective, and transforming what Mezirow (1991) terms their meaning perspectives. The holistic pedagogical approach to intercultural education described here emphasizes reflection and self-reflexivity and bodymindfulness in order to promote integrative development of students as whole people, not just to focus on their intellectural growth. It is intended to help them to cultivate both their rational and extrarational capabilities and to exercise appropriate self-care during the process of writing their theses. If they can learn to welcome confusion as a transitory state between prior convictions and new meaning perspectives, they are more likely to experience transformative learning and new ways of being. As the reflective passages written by students in final papers suggest, they have responded to this holistic educational opportunity with enhanced self-awareness, new skills, and the recognition that they need to make the intention to continue learning throughout their lives.